Arc II: The Blood That Binds
by gamblerrikku
Summary: Everyone has an agenda, but do any of them parallel hers? She's not paranoid, everyone really is out to get her. Part II of Maybe Forever - Chap 20
1. 20 Lost

_**Gr's note**: Yeah, this won't make any sense at all unless you've read the first arc of the story, and for the simple reason that I haven't completed the rewrite to my own satisfaction, I'll be posting Chapters 1-19 again so that you can all refresh your knowledge of the story. Enjoy the long time in the making Chapter 20!_

* * *

_Explore the cave that is my chest  
A torch reveals there's nothing left  
Your whispers echo off the walls  
And you can hear my distant calls  
The voice of who I used to be  
Screaming out "someone, someone please"  
Please shine a light into the black_

_Wade through the depths and bring me back _

_**I Need You – Relient K**_

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- Lost -

Daffodils. A great big bunch of them that had started only one strong and had grown to at least a couple dozen over the last week sat in a plastic vase on my windowsill, begging for more than the meager light being let in through the iron mesh outside the glass. Having been brought in one or two at a time, the oldest ones were wilting and turning brown... An apt mimicry of what I was experiencing myself.

"Has somebody been bringing me flowers? I love daffodils."

"Kakashi keeps bringing them in. He wants you to get well soon." I knew. I remembered, even if I wasn't supposed to, exactly what happened. She'd tried to make me forget... so I let her believe she had.

Even if that meant that I wasn't supposed to remember spending the night with Kakashi here in the hospital and finding him gone in the morning, on account of Tsunade changing her orders and what she planned on doing with me. I wasn't supposed to remember any of the days that followed either... Being isolated, without even the faintest shadow of someone who could be called a visitor.

The less personal interaction someone had within a certain period of time, the less significant the memory became and so it became easier to destroy those memories. That's the basic gist of the theory behind memory removal as it applies to the method I'd brought with me back to the village... I had enough experience with the jutsu and more than enough tricks up my sleeve to ensure that it hadn't worked, while still making her think that it had, but I still felt... cheated, in a sense.

"...Why am I here, Shishou?" She didn't trust me not to exact revenge of some sort on Sasuke, so she'd taken the easy way out and simply gotten rid of any reason for me to want to. Worse yet, she hadn't done it right away so that I could have company, she'd waited until after I was completely stable; The accelerated growth patterns she had been so worried about had finally stopped sometime last night and I'd only gotten out of surgery a few hours ago.

My skeleton had been badly damaged by the excessive growth and my muscles hadn't fared much better; I even bore scars where my skin had torn from trying to accommodate my changing frame underneath. Now, after Tsunade had basically put me back together, I was still going to be on medication for a very long time while I adjusted back to normal. Strictly speaking, this was something else I wasn't supposed to remember. The official story was...

"You had a seizure, from the unstable growth. We put you to sleep and kept you like that to keep it from happening again. We'll be able to let you out today, after I go over your new medications with you." Unfortunately, people have a harder time trying to sound like a convincing liar while they're fighting with their own conscience, as the blond-haired woman was doing now. She knew that getting rid of someone's memories was wrong, but at the same time she was attempting to do what was right for the village, not me. For the village, the continued existence of two shinobi was more valuable than only one, with the possible destruction of the other.

It didn't matter so much when I put it all into perspective, it just required that I change my plans, for the time being. I'd have to get creative with Sasuke after I found out exactly what, if anything, had been done to him about this incident... More than likely, there had been no action taken in that regard. That was going to change, whether they liked it or not, because I wasn't about to let him get away with such cowardice.

For now though, he could be relegated to an afterthought, a shadow flitting just within the borders of my psyche; He was the very least of my worries at the moment. Far more important right now were the lengths I was going to have to go to and the time it would take to get myself back to normal. Sedatives to make me sleep through the nightmares, vitamin cocktails to help replenish and fortify my drastically undernourished system and various antibiotics to heal and prevent infection were just the start of the prescription medley Tsunade had been ever so kind as to provide for me in addition to a carefully constructed diet and exercise regime.

As well, I couldn't be left alone. She said it was due to the danger of me possibly having another seizure so soon after surgery, but the concern and fear in her amber eyes screamed otherwise; Sasuke was probably in the village and she was wary of my safety and ability to take care of myself. Though she said she strongly wished for me to stay with a friend or have a friend stay with me, it was slightly more than a hunch that told me I wouldn't have the choice; She'd already ordered someone to 'politely impose' on me, probably Kakashi... Of course I didn't mind, provided that it was, but I couldn't say what he might think when he finally got the chance to see me as I was.

Skeletal and waif-like, I had both lost weight as my body tried to produce the energy I needed to grow and shot up drastically in height, resulting in me being as tall as most men and maybe half as heavy. Uneven lines and partially healed cuts could be seen all over my skin in imperfect patterns that blossomed out from sharp, bony joints where my skeleton had actually torn through not twelve hours ago, a sight that had sickened me and I couldn't stop seeing when I looked. I'd lost the baby fat that had rounded out my face before and now bore unflatteringly severe features to accompany my already ugly forehead, making me look too much like my father to be able to stand my reflection; I'd covered the bathroom mirror in this room after making the realization that even though I'd killed him I'd never truly be rid of him and the emaciated teenage boy's body I had been 'blessed' with did nothing to improve my perspective upon my appearance. Top it all off with the tri-pupiled scarlet eyes that I could no longer deactivate and the premature white streaks I was sporting in my sheared off, boyishly cut hair and I... well, I didn't quite look like my worst nightmare, but I was certainly no beauty queen. I looked even worse that I had, a feat that I would have thought impossible a mere week ago.

Safe enough to say though, whatever appeal I might've had then I'd certainly lost and was fully aware of it. Tsunade had given thought to my self-repulsion the first time she'd found out that I had covered the mirror, which was actually a few days ago and had afterwards added on to my quarantine uniform to include an over-sized gray sweater with a voluminous hood that swallowed me entirely and a pair of gray gloves with the fingers sheared off; It was truly a gesture I was grateful for, especially since her inner medic should have been vetoing such coverage in humid thirty-five degree weather due to the increased risk of heatstroke and any number of other seasonal ailments.

"Now, you have a visitor that I asked to wait until I was finished with you. Get dressed and I'll walk you out to him, since you're leaving anyway." I nodded quietly and set about working my way out of the wretched paper scrap that was doing nothing to hide me, either from myself or anyone else... A task that it would turn out I was near incapable of doing by myself through the lingering pain I was in.

Depending on others for even just the smallest of things... It felt humiliating and infuriating, even though I knew it was nobody's fault but my own. Almost seeming saddened and slightly smug at the same time, Tsunade assisted me with getting dressed in much the same manner as she had when she caught me shearing off my overgrown mess of matted, tangled hair because I couldn't pull a brush through it without its brittleness causing it all to snap and fall off in the brush; That is to say, she cautiously gave me my space and helped as minimally as she could, mainly to ensure that I didn't take hours doing it and to make sure I looked neat and tidy. She always did have high expectations for her pupils' hygiene and appearance, evidenced enough by Shizune's carefully crafted look of simplicity and her obsession with cleanliness.

Keeping my hood up and my head down provided me with a delightful shield, figuratively speaking, and the heat wasn't nearly as bad as you'd think, but Tsunade looked particularly perturbed with how far I chose to withdraw into my clothing; Hiding from the world certainly wasn't a healthy habit to get into, but I didn't plan on doing it forever. I only wanted to hide the worst of it, the cuts, unexplainable bruising and the... severity of my image as a whole. It was only temporary, I could hope.

"There is just one more thing I'd like to discuss with you before you leave, but this is as your hokage, and not your medic." I shrugged, truly uncaring of whatever she might see fit to drop on me right this moment. She cleared her throat at my dismissive gesture and continued cautiously, as if she was expecting a bomb to go off in front of her if she spoke too harshly.

"...I'd like you to strongly consider taking your place as the leader of the Uchiha clan as soon as possible."

At first I didn't say anything, wary of the lessons throughly beaten into my skull about composure and remaining level-headed regardless of the situation, not only by Tsunade, but more importantly by Itachi himself. Once I understood exactly what she was asking (which in all truthfulness should not come as any sort of surprise) I found myself quirking an eyebrow in amusement, the gesture she was evidently expecting the very least.

"Not today, I hope. Ceremonies of that nature take time, preparation... Another willing to undergo it with me..." I almost rolled my eyes, remembering the rules concerning a woman taking over the leadership of such a naturally patriarchal family; Of course I would have to get married to formally accept the title, gender bias was the bread and butter of all old clans like this one. They would never assume that a woman could be a good leader without a man looking over her shoulder at all times.

'Ah... Yes, I was going to mention that you'd have to get married... You already knew?" Her eyes narrowed inquisitively and I shrugged, adopting my normal stance on issues of such a... delicate nature.

"Ask me no questions..." She only glared more sharply at me, obviously displeased.

"Very few would speak to me like that, young lady."

"...Gender bias among old-fashioned clans isn't exactly something new, Tsunade-sama. I assumed, that's all." Apparently satisfied with my answer, however grudgingly, she opened the door to my room and I grabbed the freshest blossom from the vase on the sill, noting with the teeniest of smiles that the end was jagged and roughly cut; It was hand-picked and probably cut with a kunai, rather than bought at the flower shop all neat and pretty. It was sweet that he knew about my preference for white daffodils, enough so that he would seek them out himself... So what would he think about the situation I found myself in now?

"... I almost wonder why you'd bother to warn me though— It's not like I'm not already being treated like a piece of livestock for the village's gain, so what's one more grain of rice on the scale, so to speak?" A significant silence followed me out of the room as she handed me a cloth drawstring bag with all of my medication in it and removed my file from the bracket on the door to indicate that the room was empty, all the while casting me a disparaging stare. Breaking eye contact easily, my eyes fell on the only other occupant of the hallway, a young civilian nurse. She walked past us in a daze, obviously lost in the wrong part of the hospital and unsure of how to get back; Almost inquiringly her glance fell pleadingly on us before she made eye contact with me and recoiled, obviously terrified by what she saw. Too late I dropped my eyes to the linoleum below my feet as her flat-bottomed loafers slapped against it loudly in her hurried escape, attracting the attention of the hokage, who had been busy notating something in my file.

"...What's wrong with her?" Finding the floor to be the most visually appealing thing around, I dipped my head back farther into my hood and felt ever so slightly more at ease with the reprieve my sensitive eyes were given from the glaringly bright overhead lights. After a perpetually dark hospital room, the neon lights were far too harsh and I was beginning to absolutely detest them.

"...Who knows?" As I turned and walked slowly down the hall, the old path that I had walked hundreds of times before abandoning became familiar once again and even weak, cautious steps carried me quickly to the quiet lobby, where nobody seemed to be waiting. Evidently satisfied enough with my progress that she was sure I'd make it on my own, Tsunade had let me go on alone when we hit the nurse's station a couple hallways back and so wasn't here to see that there was nobody here waiting for me... Nonetheless, I didn't feel like waiting around for an escort, hokage's wishes or not. I'd make it home fine on my own, provided that I didn't try to do anything stupid, like take the rooftop route.

Outside, the village streets were marginally busier than the hospital had been and for every step I took down the crowded street I attracted another hushed whisper, another suspicious stare... Even here, where a seven foot tall blue fish man in a black and red cloak could once walk without attracting the faintest hint of attention, civilians' heads had started to turn at anyone the least bit sinister looking... Such as someone who wouldn't show their face to the public, I can only imagine.

Eventually the streets grew smaller and less densely populated as I got further from the center of town and closer to the training grounds; Nobody really lived out here besides a few elderly persons who had been there their entire lives and were too set in their ways to leave. We were too close too close to the Uchiha complex. After the massacre, everyone in my neighborhood moved away... Afraid of the specters and vengeful spirits that seemed to emanate from the property, I can only assume.

I used to like being near where Sasuke lived. When I was six, I could climb onto the roof of my house and by jumping as high as I could, I could see over the main gate of the property and all the way back to Sasuke's front door, the house furthest back on the lot and the biggest one in the compound. Every day I'd go and see if he wanted to walk to school together, even after the massacre, despite being rejected every time...

I never used to notice the ghosts.

It never bothered me when I was younger that dozens upon dozens of people had been slaughtered there, probably because I didn't fully understand much past the fact that Sasuke no longer had a family like I did. Now though... I could _feel_ the shadow that had descended over it.

A ruined, desiccated palace over which I had truly no desire to rule, even if that seemed to be the ultimate goal that Itachi had been aiming for... his reason for all of this. The threads of his intent were slowly weaving together to create a fine, if not slightly morbid, tapestry as every conversation we'd ever had began to make sense on a different level, now that I had a new context to add it all to.

What I had originally thought were offhand comments about his loathing of the clan as it was and his ideals about what it could be now sounded more like instructions, advice on what he wanted from me. Even the endless training and extensive repertoire of rare fire jutsu that he refused to give up on until I could do them in my sleep now felt like training of a different sort; The passing on of family secrets.

The extensive and heavy shadows only grew longer and more chill as I approached the gate, one side falling off its hinges. It looked far worse than I ever remembered seeing it, as if it had been abandoned for a hundred years instead of a scant fifteen... Through the gap in the gate I could see the caved-in roofs, brown grass and weeds growing wild everywhere and not a single live tree anywhere in sight. Houses lie in shambles covered in large gray and black splotches, most likely soot from the massive funeral pyre that had cremated the victims of the massacre, and there was a... dead feeling hanging over everything. The same feeling that sank into the very fiber of battlegrounds and graveyards everywhere, that kept people frightened and believing in ghosts.

The place wasn't meant to be lived in as it was... Maybe after being burned to the ground and purged of... whatever it was, ghosts or spirits or whatnot, but not now. The gate wouldn't even open, rusted and off-kilter as it was.

I lifted my head for a moment to let the momentary rare breeze that was floating by brush against the sticky, sweaty skin of my neck to cool me a little, only to find myself covering my nose quickly against the incredible reek that was following the cool air. Blowing out at me through the cracks and gaps in the gate, it smelled like decomposing flesh. Decomposing _human_ flesh.

"_...What have you done...?_" Had Sasuke actually killed someone within the village limits? A civilian, maybe? To smell like this, the corpse would still have to be pretty fresh.

The gate wouldn't open and I didn't really have the strength or spare chakra to jump over the wall, but the wood was throughly rotten, crumbling under my fingers as I applied even moderate pressure— An entire side tore itself off of its hinges when I pushed as hard as I could on the rough iron crossbar, leaving it partially dangling from the chain and lock that looked to be rusted well beyond the point of usefulness. Stepping carefully over the upended gate, I found that the smell immediately grew stronger once I set foot on the property.

Walking very carefully and slowly, I intermittently removed my hand from my nose to more accurately discern where I was going... At least until the crows came into sight. There were dozens of them, perching and circling around dead trees and hopping along the ground way back at the back of the compound; Directly in front of what I knew to be Sasuke's house.

Quietly I approached, unwillingly to scare the murder before they'd had the chance to tell me what they were there for... That certainly didn't take long though. There was one burrowing around in some very soft soil, and another one pecking at something nearby... A something that looked suspiciously like a woman's hand, poking out of the dirt.

Loud screeching and cawing accompanied the flurry of ebony feathers swooping upwards as I rushed in, only for me to find that I had been right; A slim, calloused and bloody left hand rose out of the dirt, its entire ring finger missing and the wound ragged where it had been pecked at. Swallowing the stomach contents (or lack thereof) that had risen to the back of my throat, I ignored the little voice in my head telling me to run, to get away because it was dangerous here and I moved to where the other bird had been scratching away at the dirt, noticing from the corner of my eye that the entire murder seemed to be watching me... Staring down at me from a dead yew tree with glittering, intelligent black eyes.

Forcing my attention back, I merely had to brush aside the top layer of soil to see the prize that the clever bird had sought: Eyes. The face under my trembling fingers was missing her left and most of her right, her eyes sockets still sticky and wet with blood that had not yet had a chance to really dry. She had been a pretty woman with bright, poppy-red hair and naturally pale skin made even more pallid with the onset of death... Broken glasses still clung to her ears, neither of which bore earrings or even the tell-tale holes from piercings. Fresh as can be, this woman had most likely been alive less than twenty-four hours ago.

What had she done to make Sasuke want to kill her? More importantly, what was her relationship with him and why had he felt enough remorse to _bury_ her, even if it _was_ a shallow grave?

My head jerked up when the strangely appealing sound of a hundred wings beating in unison alerted me to the shadows around me moving; One in particular, at the side of the house and moving to the back... It looked like a person, but with how dark it had gotten I couldn't be sure. Even the sharingan picked out very little in the shadows on this part of the grounds.

It had to be Sasuke. Who else would it be, here? Especially now, with twilight starting to fall around me.

I knew I should run, if I could. Opinion on which direction, however, differed between finely honed instincts and plain old common sense... But, my instincts were rarely flawed anymore, and they hadn't killed me yet.

"**Sasuke!**" Running was difficult, almost impossible in the condition I was in, especially through the thick brush that encircled the expansive manor... Even going all the way to the courtyard-like back, Sasuke was nowhere to be found; The air and everything in seemed undisturbed, almost completely still... like a morbid postcard or something equally rigid and quiet.

Aching from exertion, tired and still sick that Sasuke had murdered a girl within the village, I couldn't help it; I did something that I never in my right mind would have done.

"**ANSWER ME!!!**"

"_HELP! Please, help me! Let me out!!_" Distorted and echoic, the voice that answered me was most definitely not Sasuke's.

Perking up and looking around as I tried to quell my own rising panic, I narrowed my sights on a lone well overgrown with a single creeping rosebush, with its wooden cover in splinters on the ground next to it. Taking a breath, I sucked it up and started running, afraid that the voice _might_ not be a ruse; Maybe there really was a little girl trapped in the well on a nearly deserted property on the edges of town. Stranger things had happened, I suppose.

"Can you hear me? Talk to me sweetie, I'll help you out, okay?"

"_I don't want to be down here, I want my mommy! I want my mommy..._"

"I-it's going to be alright, I promise. Sit tight, I'm going to help you.." Heavy, frantic sobbing echoed up the well shaft as I leaned over it as far as I could, palms braced on the edge as I tried to determine how deep it was; With no rope or anything of its kin nearby, I'd have to hope that the little chakra I had would get me down there and back up with a passenger before Sasuke really did show up... Assuming that he wasn't watching from the shadows, just waiting for me to jump in before moving in for the kill.

"Alright... Sweetie, can you see me up here?" The sobbing broke down into irregular hiccups, but in the rapidly fading light, I couldn't see the bottom or her at all, sharingan be damned.

"_I sees you._"

"Good. Now, I'm coming down there, okay? Move to the back of the well and get as close to the wall as you can, so that I don't hurt you when I jump." There was some shuffling and the sick sound of someone trying to walk through thick mud, but shortly the crying started again full force.

"_I can't... When I move my leg hurts really bad, and my tummy does too._" Breathing a soft sigh, a mix of frustration and exhaustion, I almost stepped back before a thought struck me quite violently.

"... H-how long have you been down there, sweetie?"

"_...Since the bad man put me down here._" I flinched, having been abruptly shoved into a realization I hadn't wanted to make; This wasn't a chance accident... That would be hoping for too much, considering whose house I was lingering behind at the moment.

"Alright, when was that?"

"_I... I dunno... before it got dark...and then got light again... and now it's dark again... I don't like the dark..._" Yesterday. Somehow, I got the feeling that she was somehow related to the poor woman laying in a shallow grave on the other side of the house, and at the same time I was given the rather strong suspicion that Sasuke had never planned on this kid living; Either he was coming back to kill her outright, or he was going to let her stay down there, screaming and crying until her throat was hoarse and she starved or became critically dehydrated. It's not like anyone would have heard her, if I hadn't shown up.

Almost out of nowhere, a foreign and almost incomprehensible thought struck me; Crows... Itachi always seemed to be surrounded by the clever birds, and one might say that he had quite an affinity for them...

Had I been led here? Maybe there _were_ such things as restless spirits... Restless spirits who saw fit to run interference in their siblings' doings.

Looking up at the sky through the gnarled branches of two trees intertwined above me, the sapphire blue of twilight sky reminded me sharply that if I didn't hurry up, I was just asking to be caught... Like this, I wouldn't be of much use defending either myself or the girl, especially since I was already gambling with the possibility that I wouldn't be able to get either one of us out once I was down there. Here's hoping Tsunade's talent for games of chance hadn't rubbed off on me.

Her crying quieted after a few raspy coughs and I dropped my bag down on the dead grass at my feet, unwilling to lose the valuable medication inside in case I accidentally dropped it down into the pitch blackness. Steeling myself, I stepped up onto the ledge and quickly dropped down into the dark, keeping one hand as firmly against the chipped and worn stone as I could while I rushed past it, counting the distance I fell as closely as I could.

Abrupt, high-pitched screaming made me halt my descent just as suddenly, grunting in extreme pain as I had the wind knocked out of me, all of my weight and the momentum from my descent dropping wholly on my left arm, suspended as I was by only my fingers and the minute amount of chakra I could afford to hold myself up on the slimy, wet wall. From my shoulder to my finger tips the pain was absolutely debilitating, to say nothing of the muscles in my neck and back that I could feel I'd pulled or possibly even torn; The sensation of so much pain at once wasn't unlike having the seal activated, and I was only just stopping myself from getting sick.

"W-what's wrong, honey? Why did you scream?" Swallowing sharply to help contend with my sudden shortness of breath and nausea, I lifted myself up on the other arm to distribute my weight more evenly and help lessen the pain. My shoulder and elbow were probably both dislocated at least somewhat, but I could only hope that the chakra pinning me to the wall had kept my wrist from doing so as well; It hurt as badly as the other two joints, but if it was injured badly, it might swell up too fast for me to get out of here. Below me, I realized that I could hear panicked, shallow breathing that certainly wasn't mine.

"...I didn't want you to land on me." Her quiet, shaky words sounded closer than I anticipated, and were immediately followed by the feeling of tiny, cold fingers wrapping partially around my ankle, eliciting a shiver from me that wasn't out of place in the oddly frigid dampness down here. Forget starving, the poor thing would freeze to death first.

"Can you still see me, honey?"

"Yes..."

"Can you grab onto me and stand up?" Small hands grabbed at my leg and I swallowed again as additional weight began bearing down on my arm; Soon it was just a gentle tug on my pants just above the knee and slightly surprised, I slowly let myself down from the wall. Immediately I sunk into the muck at the bottom, and I found myself completely shocked when two hands grabbed onto my shirt just above my right elbow, with the sounds of her straining and trying to dislodge herself from the mud indicating that it was as high as she could reach; Despite her articulation being that of an older child, she was a _very_ little girl, with the top of her head reaching my hip, at best. I had been expecting a much larger kid, maybe eight or nine years old. Bending down slowly to kneel on one knee in the mud, I braced my good arm on the wall as I cautiously tested the movement capabilities of the other.

"Lean on me and grab onto the front of my sweater as tight as you can so you don't fall." Small hands obediently reached around my neck and held onto me tightly, her sniffling and intermittent coughing making my stomach curl in pity. She was too young to deserve this.

"Hold on as tight as you can." I took her tensing grasp as an affirmation and stood up, feeling the thick mud drop in chunks from my pant legs while I carefully felt along the wall with my fingers for a makeshift handhold to get me started. Raw and stinging from my less than graceful descent, my sensitized and bloody fingers had no trouble finding niches in the stone; The problem was getting a grip on the slimy, slippery rock.

Finally giving up on the conventional method, I cringed a little at the piercing shriek that sounded out right beside my ear as I took a chance and used chakra to quickly vault myself up the wall, well aware of and prepared for the pain when I was forced to latch onto the wall with my other arm, lest we both fall right back down to the bottom. Breathing heavily and doing my best to ignore both the excessive pain and the broken crying and coughing right at my ear I began our ascent, one step after another.

"Shh... You don't need to cry, it's going to be okay." I didn't have the free hand to spare her a comforting pat, but apparently my raspy, labored words were enough to placate her, her broken crying subsiding once again into hiccups and eventually just quiet, shallow breathing while I steadily gained us ground through a single-minded fixation upon the little circlet of midnight blue sky above us.

The tunnel seemed endless, with the pain eventually being replaced by the dull, fiery burn of exertion that penetrated deep into my chest and lungs, even going as far as to impair my vision even further than it already was; Colored spots not unlike those that appear after a camera flash goes off in your face were the deadly messenger of defeat that, thankfully, barely began their tale before my fingers no longer stuck to stone and I broke out into completely clear air, my lungs and every other part of my body screaming out in relief as I sagged over the ledge, my legs still dangling in the well, my fingers brushing dead grass on the ground below my eyes.

A startled and pained shriek caught in my throat as a hand much larger than my own wrapped tightly around my upper left arm, wrenching me up and to my feet before stifling what noise I had made with its twin pressed firmly over my mouth and constricting my breath.

"...What do you think you're doing here, Sakura?" Disoriented and shaking from being pulled up too suddenly, I couldn't stand; As soon as he let go of me I fell to my knees, eyes firmly shut to stave off the abrupt dizziness plaguing me. I couldn't even muster up enough coherence to speak, or explain myself... For a moment even the girl around my neck went forgotten, lost to the pure relief that it hadn't been Sasuke that found us.

"...Poof!" A curious giggle pulled me back to reality and I opened my eyes, just barely able to see the tiny hand pointing up at Kakashi's head; He himself backed up a step, clearly startled and at a loss while he ran one hand back through his hair, the likely target of the girl's curious observation. Clearing my throat in an exhaustive attempt to regain my speech, I tried to stand and once again fell, my arms and legs about as strong as strands of overcooked ramen.

"...For the love of god, don't ask. I'll explain later." Limply I reached out in the general vicinity of where I had left my bag, flinching slightly every time the little girl hanging onto me fidgeted and moved, until my fingers finally found the cloth bag and dragged it towards me in preparation to attempt standing up and getting the hell out of here.

"...Where's my mommy? I want to see her..." I flinched openly this time, even though the girl sounded tired and was moving less now; How was I supposed to tell her that her mother wouldn't be coming back for her?

"... Why don't we worry about you first, sweetie? I'm sure your mother would feel better knowing you're safe and healthy." I swallowed, disliking the careful dance I did to avoid telling the truth to a child so young. I was never one who enjoyed deceit, no matter how minimally I used it or how necessary the lie may be. Lying to a kid though... It just seemed so much worse.

"Okay... If it would make mommy happy..." I swallowed inadvertently at her optimistic obedience, knowing perfectly well that I'd eventually have to burst her bubble in the worst way.

Bracing myself forward on my shaky right arm, I was interrupted in my attempt at standing when the kid on my back finally let her curiosity get the better of her and did exactly what she had to Kakashi.

"...Poof! You poofy too!" I heard a snicker somewhere above me when the kid pulled my hood back and buried her hand in my short hair; Completely mortified that he was even seeing me like this I quickly pulled my hood back up, jarring her hand out of my hair with more than a little tug and an indignant squeak. Immediately after I followed it up with a swift backhand to the only part of Kakashi I could reach, although I doubt he even felt it through his sandal.

"Help me out here, you wanted to go didn't you?" My legs were like jell-o— I couldn't move them any more than I could dredge up the chakra to transport us all the way back to my house, and the ever-so-slightly irritating eye-crease he came down to eye level to give me told me that he damn well _knew_ I was helpless.

"What's the magic word?" I ground my teeth in frustration, utterly pissed off by being forced to remember that I would be at the mercy of somebody else for a very long time now— Whether it be him or whoever else was assigned to 'assist' me at any given time, I'd lost my independence.

"Please!" Small arms squeezed my neck even tighter for a moment, startling me as much as the thin, piping voice at my ear that was all too happy humoring him. Growling at the eye-crease that only seemed to deepen once the kid answered him so obediently, I mumbled my own rendition of her simplicity, one that was markedly less polite and most likely not appropriate for her young ears.

"...Hold on, if you can." I heard giggling and I was pulled to my feet again, this time by the hands easily spanning my waist under both my sweater and the short-sleeved shirt underneath of it. The abrupt movement forced me to wrap my arms around his shoulders and cling as tightly as I could, lest my staggering attempts at independent stance drag him back down to the ground with me.

"_...What is her obsession with my __hair__?_" His whispered voice right in my ear was accompanied by a warm puff of breath to tickle the wispy hairs at the side of my neck and some more giddy, childish giggling from behind my head as her arm curiously went missing from its established spot around my neck; After only a moment his head dipped in utter concentration and his hands slid away from my waist to join together at the small of my back, forming a flurry of handseals at a speed that I had always been a little jealous of, especially now that I knew I could match it, if it weren't for my unfortunate condition. It was going to take months of rehab to get me back where I was.

Closing my eyes tightly to fight the natural vertigo that came from teleportation jutsus of all sorts, I found out quite shortly that I should have had the foresight to warn the girl hanging around my neck— A high-pitched whimper barely preceded the particularly distinct sound of retching and a deep, hacking before I felt something warm and moist soak into the base of my hood and heard the sniffles that would be shortly followed by crying. It didn't bother me as much as it might have, had I not been a medic and doused in every nasty substance and bodily fluid conceivable over the course of my career, but all the same I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor thing.

The conclusion to the jutsu took no more than a few seconds, and the retreat of Kakashi's hands from my back to spanning my waist once again was an acute reminder that he was not a medic, and most likely wasn't fond of the idea of having his hands drenched in stomach acid now that it was trickling quickly down my back, aided by the sweat slicking my skin under my layers.

"I... I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean t-to get s-s-sick on you..." More coughing and I let go of the back of Kakashi's vest to gently clasp the hand that clutched my sweater like her life depended on it, grimy and frigid as it was.

"It's alright, it's not a big deal. I'm used to worse." Feeling safe that I myself wouldn't get sick, I opened my eyes only to be met with the shocking and inexplicable sight of my living room couch... Pristine save for a washed-in bloodstain in the shape of a hand on the armrest; Even barely visible with the sharingan, I knew that it was Sasuke's handprint, and the knowledge initiated the formation of a heavy lump of ice in my stomach.

Fear... Nearly foreign to me now, at least this kind, I could still remember it. If I looked a little to my right, down to the floor, I'd be able to see the stains where the blood couldn't be shampooed out of the rug, or the outline of where it had soaked into the floorboards and couldn't be scraped out of the individual seams between each plank.

If I could make myself look.

"...It's still yucky, and it stinks... Can I get down now? I feel sick again." Swallowing hard to clear my throat and hopefully dissolve the lump of ice growing among my innards, I nodded and wrenched my eyes from the hand print on the couch, my voice most resembling a raspy squawk when I turned around to find the kitchen door to be the source of the light allowing me to see.

"I'll wash the sweater and it won't stink anymore though. Here, sit down here, okay?" Setting her down on one of the wooden chairs next to the table, with Kakashi's wordless and extremely patient assistance, I was finally granted the privilege of being able to connect a face to the little girl's as of yet disembodied voice.

She looked absolutely terrified, but it was nothing next to the initial wave of cold that washed over me at first glance— Except for dirty, wet hair that hung down her back in two braids the color of poppies, the girl could have sprung to life from my class picture of first grade at the academy, with a dirty purple yukata in place of the blue sweater and white shorts that my photo favored.

Was she his daughter? His niece, Maybe? No, she was definitely his daughter. He and Itachi may have looked similar, but this... She was absolutely uncanny.

Why would he want her dead? Unthinking, I reached out to brush the stream of tears from her muddy cheek, my hands shaking with... not rage, or fear, but something... unfamiliar.

Sasuke had tried to kill his daughter, his own flesh and blood. He'd killed her mother, and he'd tried to kill her.

Not unlike my own father. No different from the bastard whose face I bore the unfortunate fate of sharing.

Is this what happens when fate decides to laugh in your face? It involves us with one already tagged to share a similar history and... What? Charges us with changing their lives, or dooms us to watch it all happen again... From a different viewpoint, in a different order, but with a duplicated outcome.

Fate certainly had a sick sense of humor, it would seem.

"...What's your name, sweety?" How literal could fate be, I wonder.

"Ren-chan." I swallowed, the significance of it all not lost on me. The lotus, a symbol of ultimate purity and perfection... A lotus with red petals, however, either would mean a symbol of divine passion and energy, or of consuming rage. Either way, her mother had named her with a higher meaning than just this little girl's existence, and in another tie of similarity between us, had gone the ever-so-original route of naming her after a flower.

"Ren? That's a pretty name. Do you have another name, your family name?" She shook her head quietly, but her jet black eyes didn't leave mine, her pupils indistinguishable from the irises surrounding them as she pointed at my face, looking less frightened and more curious.

"Mommy says only my family is special like me." It was less a statement than a question she was just dying to ask, but apparently afraid to; There was something akin to distress in her expression and she took my hand with both of hers, squeezing so hard that I could feel my weak frame cracking beneath her fingers despite the fact that she was so small.

"Is being special bad here too?! People were scared of me at home, so I wasn't allowed! She said it would be better here, because daddy was special too, but he's a bad man and I don't like him!—" Her tears began afresh and her words quickly became garbled and unintelligible as she dived off of her chair at my chest, knocking me on my ass with an extremely jarring pain that shot directly up from my tailbone and had me seeing spots again.

Winded, I let her cry freely, wrapping her up in my good arm as I sympathized for her as much as I could. Crying was important, after all— I might not be able to do it as often as was good for me anymore, but she wasn't a shinobi, and so wasn't privy to our rules. She was just a little kid, let her cry if she needed to.

"_... Her ankle is the size of a baseball, Sakura. I think we should take her to the hospital."_ I shook my head firmly at the advice being conferred to me in a low, almost inaudible tone. I needed time... to think, to understand the situation better.

"_No... I don't want Tsunade or the elders to find out that there's another sharingan brat wandering about for them to exploit."_ I let a half-hearted smirk grace my lips at the mention of a long forgotten nickname keyed by a friend with a grudge against the family, albeit with very good reason. I wonder if he'd like me so much if he knew I was one of them now? Probably not.

"_... I can fix her leg here, get her something to eat and get her cleaned up. Further then that, I'll figure out what I'm going to do while she sleeps, but..."_ I straightened up, an idea lighting up my mind as if I had forgotten one very important detail.

"_But, for all intents and purposes, I am the clan leader. She's my responsibility and I don't want you to breathe a word about her to Tsunade until I figure out what's going on. Is that clear?"_

"_Not a word. ...Although you really owe me a damn good explanation for why you were at the compound and how you even knew she was there. Sasuke's been gone since last night, so obviously he didn't lure you there." _I thought back and smiled, wondering if this meeting had truly been orchestrated as I hugged the still-sobbing girl close to my chest.

"_Call me crazy, but I think he wanted me to find her..."_

"_Who, Sasuke? He didn't even know—"_ I shook my head, cutting him off.

"_This... is going to sound strange, but... I think it was Itachi that let me find her. I don't think he wanted her to die."_ The crows, the shadow... Even the scent of the corpse should not have reached me as strongly as it had, but...

"_I'm no psychiatrist, so I can't definitively say that you're crazy. What I can do is say that I think you're batshit insane and that I think you need to take your medication and get some rest. How's that?"_ I snorted, less than surprised about his lack of belief in the supernatural.

"_Duly noted, although I'm afraid I'll have to decline your advice for the time being. Here, give me some space."_ His proximity was beginning to make me slightly uncomfortable, being as close as we had to be for our whispered exchange and I needed to get the girl off of me; My legs were falling asleep under her weight.

"Honey— Er, Ren-chan... Why don't we get your leg fixed so that it feels better, okay?" Sniffling and hiccuping, she slowly pushed away from my chest, her face red and eyes swollen under the grime.

"...Is you a doctor?" I thought for a moment before nodding, wherein Kakashi picked her up off of my lap easily and set her back down on her chair. Fully devoid of her weight, it was no longer an impossible task to stand on my own two feet, albeit with the slightest amount of assistance from the nearest appliance. Leaning down to remove her sandals and socks was a little more challenging, but examining her swollen and thoroughly black and blue appendage yielded a far better diagnosis than I'd initially expected.

"... It's just a small fracture, nothing big. I'll be right back, so how about..." I looked around for something to amuse her for a minute while I went and got the supplies I'd need, and my eyes fell upon the ugly pink dry-erase board and neon green marker that my mother had always used for notes and messages when she wasn't around. Quickly I pulled the magnetized board off of the fridge and set it down flat on the table beside Ren, prompting the gaze that had been securely fixed upon me to shift to the brightly colored object.

"Go ahead and doodle, okay? I won't be far." I waited until she'd picked up the marker and turned to face the board before turning myself around and limping down the hall to the closet where I kept all my supplies— Barring what had been in my kit, of course. Kakashi made absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that he was following and remained no more than an arm's length away at any given time; It was a devotion to his mission that was doomed to get irritating, I just knew it.

"...Need a hand?" With practiced precision I disarmed the closet and picked through the contents, grabbing only the meager few items I'd need to bind her ankle after I was finished healing it. I needed Kakashi to look away for just a moment though, to grab something I needed for myself... Strictly speaking, I was not allowed to touch them, after all.

"I'd love one. Can you go into my room, into a blue bag decorated with clear moons and stars and get out one pajama set that is shorts and a t-shirt and another that's long-sleeved with long pants? Thank you." Despite the silly and strange request, he did nothing but look completely serious, even appearing to commit it to memory.

"...Anything else?" He was taking me seriously.

"... A pair of panties and an undershirt would be much appreciated, thanks." None of it would probably fit either me or Ren quite right, but there wasn't a whole lot of choice. I wasn't going to bed smelling like puke and the inside of a well, and Ren wasn't going to be wearing that yukata on any piece of furniture I owned other than the kitchen chairs.

Within moments he had disappeared into my room, presumably to root through my underwear and look for the clothing items that I'd specified and I was taking advantage of the moment of solitude I was being afforded; Out of a broken, rusted old mint tin I removed an equally broken piece of a soldier pill, one of many that were small enough to be of next to no use in a battle situation and so remained here for occasions where I needed just a little boost, like now. The piece I selected wasn't big enough to give me a huge burst of energy, nor was it immediately noticeable when I bit into it and swallowed... Thankfully it wasn't big enough to provide the 'rush' associated with the artificial adrenaline high normally given by soldier pills. It was just big enough to get me through the night, and that's all I wanted.

"These okay?" His timing was impeccable, as was becoming more often the case, as he showed up just when I was shutting the closet door and re-arming it, broken soldier pills safely tucked away where nobody would look for them. Looking quickly I recognized the pajamas easily and approved; I couldn't see any underwear, but they were most likely sandwiched in between the two sets of clothes. Turning around I stepped across the hall and reached into the bathroom to flick on the light. Finding it to be exactly as I left it, I tapped a portion of the bathroom counter that remained clear and quickly eyed up the towel supply in the linen closet— It would have to suffice for tonight, but tomorrow would be a day for mass amounts of laundry getting done.

"Just put them down here, I don't want to touch them." Off I went back towards the kitchen with only the most basic of materials in my hands and while there wasn't quite a bounce in my step per se, at least I wasn't limping quite so openly anymore. My arrival in the kitchen was greeted by Ren being completely engrossed with drawing a picture with the wrong end of the marker on a scribbled green background, reversing the normal usage of colors that I was used to. She barely even looked at me as I wet a rag in warm water and placed it on the table along with the rest of my supplies before pulling out an adjacent chair to sit and place her foot carefully up on my knees. From my limited experience with kids I'd say that she was almost unnaturally quiet, but then again it could also be her natural response to everything that had happened.

I was gentle, and even numbed her leg from the knee down to crack and reset the bone, earning me a brief look of curiosity from her before she looked away and I got to work actually mending the break; A feat that took next to no time, considering that her bones were so much smaller than the ones I was used to working on. Reducing the swelling was one thing I couldn't do, unfortunately, so of course it would still be uncomfortable to walk on for a day or so, even if I did have something to speed up the process. After I was done here, the first thing would be to clean her up.

Quickly I washed her foot and ankle with the warm rag I'd brought to the table before I took a tub of topical chilling gel and rubbed it over the entire patch of swollen limb, earning me a faint squeak of protest at the initial chill; While I still had the chance I wrapped her leg just so in the linen bandage I'd brought with me and then let her pull it away from me, touching it lightly out of curiosity.

"Ready to go have a shower, honey? That's the best I can do right now." She looked at me quizzically and slid herself off of her chair, cautiously putting her foot down as flat as she could on the floor. Upon discovering that it didn't hurt anymore, she made a funny face at me, hopping up and down on the balls of both feet.

"...What's a shower?" It was my turn to look at her in inquiry before realizing that she might never have had anything but baths; I had no idea what kind of life she'd lived up until now. Stretching my hand out to take hers, I began to lead the way towards the bathroom, pondering how to explain it.

"It's like... very warm rain that you wash yourself under. You'll see." Once again she was quiet, seemingly lost in thought, like she was trying to picture it in her head. I lead her into the bathroom and let go of her hand, only to turn around and stop Kakashi from following me into the room, an action that wasn't well-received, if anything could be taken from the look on his face.

"Go start supper, I won't be long cleaning her up, I promise."

"Sorry, I can't leave you alone, for your own safety." And Tsunade's peace of mind, I could only imagine.

"Listen, I'm feeling fine. I'm not going to collapse and it'll only be ten or fifteen minutes. There's a plastic container of vegetable soup in the freezer that you can just dump in a pot, cover in water and let simmer until it's all yummy and warm, so just..." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, frustrated with his stubbornness.

"I don't need her getting shy now, okay?" I made a motion to shoo him out of the doorway he was blocking, watching as he looked over my shoulder and sighed in annoyance, raising one hand with his fingers outstretched.

"Five minutes. If you're not done, that's what the curtain's for." Gone before I could protest this unfair 'compromise', I had to be content with the fact that he had even given me one, considering that he could've cited it a mission requirement and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it. Quietly I shut the door, turning around to the endearing sight of Ren looking around, both arms up on the counter and trying with everything she had to climb up onto it. She was light, so it wasn't much of a problem to help her something which visibly surprised her.

"I is dirty..." She was staring in the mirror and rubbing her grubby nose, a petite little pout on her tiny face as I reached up and began finagling the tangled ribbons out of her equally tangled hair so that I could let it loose and shampoo it properly.

"Well, you'll be nice and clean soon, okay? Arms up, please." Automatically she obeyed, letting me unwrap her obi and set it aside, although I seriously doubted its potential to be salvaged, much like I did for the yukata itself, which fell to the floor with a sickeningly wet sound when she dropped her arms. Left only in a pair of frilly white panties, she was bruised over much of the side where she'd broken her ankle, confirming my initial thought about it being the side she'd landed on; Considering that she hadn't died on impact though, I could only assume one of two things— Either the mud had been considerably deeper yesterday and thus a whole lot softer, or Sasuke had gone out of his way to bring her far enough down the well that she wouldn't die immediately, signaling intent. Less and less was it looking like an accident, or some sort of sick punishment than it was a death sentence.

Healing the bruises wasn't much of a challenge, but it was tiring expending much of my minuscule energy reserves on it, so I only healed the worst ones, acceding to a promise that I'd fix the rest tomorrow, when I was better rested.

"...Mommy did it diff'rent." Purposely ignoring my own reflection in the large mirror, I looked up at hers, seemingly entranced by the green glow coming from my fingers; She was even going so far as to try and touch it. Interested in the certainty of her observation, I couldn't help but wonder... Had her mother been a medic too?

"How did your mommy do it?" She stretched her arm straight out and stood up proudly, pointing at it with her free hand.

"If you bit her, the ouchies went away! But, it din't work on ev'rything, I had to wear a cast last year 'cos I broke my arm and Mommy couldn't help." Ah... Direct healing, a method of healing that was incredibly simple and uncontrollable, although it was genetic and couldn't be taught. Very different from and probably not as beneficial as Controlled healing, but I suppose it could be pretty handy in a pinch.

"You can probably do it too, can't you? It's something that you have to be born with, but the way I do it can be learned." She tilted her head off to the side, seeming deep in thought again before she answered me.

"Do you learn it at ninja school?" I nodded in utter certainty; My parents hadn't wanted me to go to the academy and become a kunoichi, so when I was studying behind their backs I hadn't had the extra time to take specialty courses like those associated with becoming a medic-nin... Otherwise I might have chosen my career a whole lot sooner.

"You can learn some of it at school, but most of it you'd learn by working at the hospital when you get older." That would be how it normally went anyway— Only about a tenth of all fresh-out-of-school medics actually got placed on a team right away, the rest all became interns to further their skills first.

"...How old do you hafta be?" She was looking at me in rapt curiosity, obviously expressing an interest in it all that I would be an idiot to quash this early on. I couldn't help but smile.

"To go to school, you should be about six, but to work in the hospital you'd have to be closer to thirteen." Looking down at her hands, she started counting on her fingers before looking sad and holding them up.

"That's... nine years! That's a long time..." Four years old... if she was counting right, that it. Strangely, I didn't doubt that she was, considering the intelligence she'd displayed thus far.

"You're four years old? Wow, you're a very smart little girl, aren't you?" I think I noticed a hint of a blush as she turned shy and hid behind her hands. Maybe she wasn't used to being recognized for being smart.

"... I turn five at Hall'ween." So... four and a half, basically. She truly was exceptional for her age.

"Well, it might seem like a long time now, but there is a lot to learn, and you'll never even notice because time will just fly." Taking off my sweater, since I was going to have to anyway, I dumped it in the laundry hamper before wrapping Ren's foot in a plastic bag I kept expressly for the purpose and helping her down off of the counter. Swiftly I turned on the shower and removed the showerhead from its perch on the wall; It wasn't often that I cared about or even noticed the handheld feature, but with Ren being such a small child it was going to help immensely.

"Alright, panties off before you hop in." She almost slipped as she clambered up over the side of the bathtub and I made a mental note to lift her in next time, to avoid her hurting herself. With her eyes shut tightly against the spray I was able to rinse her off quite a bit, though the amount of mud and other gunk that swirled on down the drain was staggering, just like the sheer saturated brightness of her hair once it wasn't visibly dirty anymore. Once done with the bulk of it I put the apparatus on the floor for the moment and grabbed my shampoo, conditioner, soap and a washcloth, setting it all on the edge of the tub except the cloth, which I handed to Ren.

"I'll give you some soap and you wash up while I wash your hair, okay?"

"Okay." She stretched out her hand with the washcloth on it and I squeezed out a dollop of cucumber and mint scented body wash, provoking her to scrunch up her nose and stick out her tongue.

"That's not soap, soap's like... hard, and slippery!" Folding the washcloth in her hand, I scrunched it up until it started to sud, wherein she started copying me and doing it herself.

"Some soap comes in bars, but mine comes in bottles, like shampoo." She started to wash up with an almost gleeful expression on her face and I left her to it, turning my attention to her hair and the shampoo bottle that sat at my elbow.

Unlike mine, her hair was long, naturally thick and straight as a pin, which made it a whole lot easier to try and deal with than my own hair in a similar state of disarray; Whatever couldn't be manually disentangled as I shampooed it gently, came out with only the slightest bit of coaxing and a wide-tooth comb once I'd added conditioner. She was good about shutting her eyes while I was rinsing her off and didn't emit so much as a peep until she was clean as a whistle and I'd turned the water off, where in she took a peek around the shower curtain, squeaked like a frightened mouse and promptly retreated back into the safety of the shower.

Sitting silently behind me on the counter, with his arms crossed over his chest and his back to the mirror, Kakashi was very obviously trying not to cause a problem; His eyes were averted towards the nearly empty towel rack standing across from him and were very nearly closed. Shrugging, I got up only to retrieve the fluffy pink towel he was staring at before handing it around the curtain to Ren, where even wrapped right around her the edges were trailing around in the puddled water at the bottom of the shower, making her look that much more tiny, vulnerable and cute.

She adamantly insisted that she could dry herself off, refusing outright to let me help her as she carefully and meticulously worked from her feet up, ending at her hair which she wrapped firmly in the towel and twisted it on her head so that it trailed down behind her.

One piece at a time I handed her the short-sleeved pajamas and finally she stepped out of the shower, looking less scared now that she was clean and dressed. Thoroughly soaked from my waist up to the top of my head, I finally grabbed a towel of my own and half-assedly dried myself as I opened the door, mostly to keep whatever excess water I was harboring from ruining the hardwood floor; An old habit instilled into me by my grandmother, who had owned the house before my parents had.

Past me sped a blur of red and powder blue while the towel was draped over my head, ruffling my pants with a soft breeze and head directly for the kitchen— Right behind me Kakashi hopped off the counter and flicked the light off, prompting me to ditch my towel and follow the little redhead who had obviously done so already.

On the stove, a large pot of soup had reached a rolling boil and at the table, her hair hanging down her back and dampening her blue t-shirt, was Ren, doodling away on the markerboard. She flashed me a happy, close-mouthed smile revealing a dimple on her left cheek; A mark of inherent cuteness that she certainly had not gotten from her father.

"You still hungry, Ren-chan?" She nodded decisively after a moment and returned to her doodles, both arms up on the table holding her up over her work while she knelt up on the chair. At the stove, Kakashi had already switched off the burner and taken the pot off the heat, leaving me to retrieve dinnerware for the three of us.

Ren drawing in the background whilst I handed one bowl after another to Kakashi for him to divvy up the soup into gave me this odd, incredibly foreign sense of domesticity— I couldn't say that I hated it, but it did remind me all too clearly of what was now considered my 'duty', and because of that it was something I wasn't quite comfortable with.

"Here you go, hon." Ren stared at her bowl for a moment when I placed it in front of her before running the spoon I gave her through the broth to make all the vegetables float around aimlessly.

"What is it? It smells nice." Her tone wasn't mocking, not that I'd expect it from a kid pushing five, but she looked pretty curious... Like she'd honestly never seen soup before.

"It's vegetable soup and it's good for you." She looked at it again and picked up a piece of diced carrot on her spoon, getting it almost all the way to her mouth before staring at the bowl suspiciously and poking my thigh with her bare toes.

"Are there dead animals in it?" She sounded sad and worried, something that almost made me wonder if she was a vegetarian. What a strange kid.

"Nope, just vegetables, some barley and black-eyed peas. No meat whatsoever." She looked relieved, to say the least, and dove back into it without any further inquiry, her feet kicking back and forth lazily under her chair. Kakashi didn't exactly look thrilled once I said 'no meat', but he wasn't saying much about it either way... He wasn't saying much at all around Ren actually, and he seemed a little... offput by her presence. Icha Icha hadn't even made an appearance, a worrisome omen in and of itself.

Especially since he was going to be even less thrilled when he found out that both of my parents were hardcore vegans, and I just plain didn't like meat; There wasn't a scrap of it anywhere in the house and most likely never would be, if Ren ended up staying with me and she didn't like it either. He'd just have to suck it up and deal with tofu and legumes instead... well, and seafood, because seafood is the only exception to the 'no meat' clause of my diet. Seafood was delicious.

"... Thank you very much, that was really good." An absent glance at Ren revealed her bowl to be empty, save for a teensy bit of broth lingering at the bottom, and the glass of apple juice I'd set out for her was equally empty. The shock must have been evident on my face, considering that I'd eaten maybe half of my bowl in the same amount of time, but even Kakashi looked surprised, speed-eater that he was.

"Are you still hungry?" She shook her head, rubbing her eyes and yawning in such a way that she was trying to hide the fact that she was tired. She probably hadn't slept in the well, so of course the poor kid was tired.

"Ready for bed?" She shook her head, as I expected; I could remember doing the same to my grandparents when I was her age, and I pretty much assume that trying to seem grown-up pretty much outranked needing to sleep for any kid, not just us.

"You'll get sick if you try to stay awake too long when you need to sleep. Let's get you to bed, okay?" She didn't protest again, instead obediently abandoning the table to make a short run for my side, where she took my hand to walk down the hall.

She'd said that she didn't like the dark, so I wouldn't torture her; The bathroom light shone indirectly into my bedroom, and the green glow of the numbers from the alarm clock should be more than bright enough to serve as a nightlight, so that's where she would sleep tonight.

Walking into the room revealed that my bed had already been remade neatly, saving me the need to do it, and the floor was mostly clear since all the bags had been neatly arranged to one side. Ren climbed onto the bed quietly, still holding my hand tightly as I shut the curtains over the window and pulled the thin topsheet over her to tuck her in.

"...If I pray hard for Mommy, will God take her to heaven?" Once again she looked worried, staring down at the floral bedsheets while I gaped at her in tongue-tied silence. The question was so... abrupt, and out of place, that I... I wasn't quite sure how to answer.

"I... I'm not sure what you mean—"

"He killed her. He tol' me so, and he said I'd stay in the dark until I died too." The sorrowful tears that started to spring up in her voice pulled at me tightly and left my chest aching with sympathy for her; Immediately some instinct prompted me to pull her in and comfort her, shushing her sobs with the best reassurance I could offer without explaining my own opinionated stance on theology.

"It's okay, I'm sure she'd happy knowing that you're safe and taken care of. She's probably already watching over you from heaven." Her crying grew slower and quieter, though not from any lack of grief; She was simply too exhausted to keep it up, that's all.

"...Are you gonna put me inna orf-nige, now that I tol' you mommy died?" Laying her gently back down on the pillow I wiped her tears with the side of my hand and smoothed her hair back from her face with every effort to make her feel cared about... The last thing she needed to think was that she was all alone.

"You're not going to any orphanage, I'll make sure of it. We're family, remember? We have to stick together, because we're both special, right?" It was my responsibility to keep her safe now; I'd treat her every bit like the daughter her mother would have, if her life hadn't been unfairly cut short, and I'd make sure Sasuke never laid another hand on her. Ever.

"... Can you stay 'til I'm asleep? I don't like the dark." I nodded, smoothing back her hair again as she shifted over to lay on her stomach, the pillow cradled between her arms and head.

"I won't leave until you're fast asleep, I promise. I'll even leave the bathroom light on in case you wake up in the night, so that it won't be dark." I vaguely felt her nod under my fingers and I settled back onto the mattress, laying just outside the reach of her short legs with one hand stretched up so that she could easily find it, which she did almost immediately.

Her hands were so small and soft, just as delicate as the rest of her. I couldn't imagine anyone trying to hurt someone so sweet, so innocent and vulnerable... Not unless they were a true-blue psychopath, an unfeeling, soulless freak utterly consumed by hate and negativity.

Had I been so wrong to think that Sasuke's retention of his humanity hadn't completely failed? I'm sure that at some point it would have been impossible to convince me that he was so depraved, but... To someone who counted sodomy and utter humiliation a method of teaching, maybe starving a terrified child to death was humane.

Was there even any point to trying to analyze him? He was on a completely different level altogether— One that I could only hope I'd never even come near. The day I could murder my own daughter without so much as a shred of remorse would be the day I'd deserve... Well, the only punishment I could think of to suit that particular crime was moot, as the artist responsible for performing it was well and throughly dead, his secret lost at my hands— It would be one of the few things he hadn't taught me before he died, most likely because he couldn't. He'd always told me that the Mangekyo techniques were unique to each person, and so both Tsukiyomi and Amaterasu were dead and gone, leaving nothing comparable in terms of pain to punish such madness.

I only knew of a small handful of people that had ever witnessed the technique and survived without going completely insane, although that isn't to say they were left without any psychological damage at all; There was something about Itachi's cruel use for the technique that left you not quite right in the head. Deidara, for example... I imagine he would have been a lot like Naruto, when he was younger, but Itachi had been the one to recruit him into Akatsuki, and I hadn't known him before that. When I met him he was a reckless, impatient head case with a disposition that made it seem like he was on a potent cocktail of speed and crack at all times. His undeniable violent streak was the one thing I'd attribute to mental damage the most; I had a sneaking suspicion that the unwavering fascination with various forms of pyrotechnology was a personality trait he'd carried from birth, considering his unique bloodline. Kakashi only became more introverted and even less willing to reach out for help, Sasuke... I can't say he became a psycho, because Orochimaru is more likely the one to blame for that, but it was probably a huge factor in it all the same, making a bad problem even worse, and I...

I'm honestly not sure. I've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so to speak, and once I get started the bloodlust kicks in and I have trouble stopping— But those were problems that were present long before I had ever met Itachi. Truthfully... he would probably be the only one who knew me well enough to pinpoint what about me had changed then, but now that was another secret lost into nothing.

Beside me, light, even snoring and a limp hand clasping my fingers gave me silent permission to leave and I slowly slid off of the bed, careful not to shift the mattress enough to wake her; I had no idea if she slept heavily or not, so there was never any harm in being safe. I made sure to shut the door tightly as I left, knowing firsthand that if I didn't, when I went to take my own shower the noise would most likely wake her, heavy sleeper or not.

"So we've gone from 'needing time to decide what to do', to outright adopting her. That's not a huge leap at all." I shrugged without turning, the knob still clenched tightly in my right hand as my left lay dead at my side, indifferent at the moment to any judgment that would clash with my own; I only wanted her to stay safe.

"It's me or Sasuke— Who would you trust to take care of her? Because I'm pretty damn sure Tsunade wouldn't put her into Sasuke's care and nor will I. I'm not as much of a bitch as people seem to think I am."

"That's not what I—"

"I know what you meant." Finally I turned, only to be met with the single most skeptical I'd ever seen adorn his... well, unadorned face. Frowning at the implication that held, I sighed and reached up to rub my sore left elbow, which had more than began to swell; It was easily bigger than Ren's ankle had been, and that injury had been at least a day old.

"Nonetheless, you have to consider what my alternatives are— I'm not above empathy, I can't just cast her out on her own or worse, leave her to the vultures that would prey on her for their own personal gain without any regard to what their treatment would do to her as a person. What if she was your niece?" His reaction involved little more than narrowing his eyes at me and crossing his arms over his chest, although that was more than enough to make it apparent that he disagreed with me.

"She's not your niece. She's Sasuke's daughter." I huffed, knowing that he was technically right, but I had no idea of how to actually classify the blood bond between Ren and I. The way he said it too... It was as if being Sasuke's daughter was her fault, as if she could've helped having a psychopath for a father.

"So what would you call us? We're still related by blood, like it or not. Itachi was enough like a brother to me that if he would have called her his niece, then that's more than good enough for me. The technicalities can be put aside, since everyone else will be doing the same anyway." I sighed and rubbed my temple, strung too tightly to avoid the headache that was already starting. This was all getting so complicated... Maybe if I knew what Itachi had done to me, I'd have a better definition to assuage him, but I didn't, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.

"...Ugh, I need a shower. We can continue this later, since I assume you won't be leaving tonight anyway." A light sprung up in his eye and he started to scratch the back of his neck, signaling trouble and halting my steps before I even took them.

"Uh... thought you should know... I've been... _temporarily displaced_ from my apartment, so—"

"—you moved everything here to give you a valid reason to be around me twenty-four seven without me getting suspicious that you were, in fact, on a surveillance mission as per Tsunade's direct order. ...And, more importantly, you knew damn well I wouldn't kick you out, either." His face morphed into an expression that made it seem like I'd dumped a bucket of ice down the back of his shirt, a clear sign that I'd hit my mark dead-on. Unsurprised, I walked right past him and into the washroom, flicking the light back on as I rummaged through my medicine cabinet for my medical scissors; I couldn't raise my arm to get my shirt off and unlike the sweater, it didn't zip up the front, so I was going to have to cut it off just to get to my shoulder to fix it.

"... Yeah, that's one way to put it, I guess." I very nearly rolled my eyes, and might have actually done it if I hadn't caught sight of my reflection in the mirror just then and completely averted my eyes, simultaneously angered and sickened from the sight.

"Honestly, I don't care, but you could have just asked to stay. You didn't have to move out and pretend to have gotten evicted." One little snip at the collar of my shirt let me rip it easily all the way down the front and I shrugged it off like a jacket, where it landed in a crumpled mess on top of Ren's soggy yukata.

"Who's pretending? I got kicked out after my landlord found out that one of my students was systematically destroying my apartment and putting the one above me in danger of collapsing." I looked up almost sympathetically at him as I started the slow and agonizing process of repairing my arm with next to no chakra, beginning first with my badly out of whack shoulder joint.

"You don't need to explain yourself, I said that I don't mind. At least here you're not paying rent." Sucking in a breath and bracing myself for the pain, I was almost able to catch the distinct morphology of his face in the mirror when I finally wrenched the bone into place with a sick crunching sound and numerous muted curses; From horrified, to disgusted, to morbidly fascinated... only the minutiae distinguished each emotion individually, and such a small detail as the constricting of a pupil, or the peculiar quirk to his narrowed eyebrow was something I could easily have missed without my own sharingan to see it.

"What are you doing?" I rolled my shoulder to test it, finding with more than a slight wave of pride that despite the difficulty the swelling posed, I could move it properly again. Next would be my elbow, a less difficult but equally painful challenge.

"Avoiding the hospital like the plague. I'm not exactly in the best of moods with our dear hokage at the moment, I'm afraid." Let him think that it was because I didn't like being treated like an infant, because it was true, I just didn't want to let him know my other reasons knowing that he was reporting back anything relevant to my condition.

Retaining my memories would be considered extremely relevant, and a possible hindrance to my recovery. I couldn't say anything, or the elders' will for me to remain complacent might provoke her to use more... _potent_ methods of memory destruction.

"It's for your own good, you kno—" He flinched as I abruptly snapped my elbow into place with a gruesome 'pop', glaring back at him in the mirror as I silently dared him to finish the overused and inappropriate adage he had been about to spout at me. Apparently common sense suddenly struck him and he thought better of his words, as he turned and refused to meet my eyes in the mirror.

"... My condition does not cripple me or put me in enough physical danger that twenty-four hour surveillance should be an issue—"

"Your attitude and proclivity for finding trouble, however..." I only glared even harder and harshly cleared my throat at the interruption, while flexing my arm gently to ascertain that I had set it properly.

"They certainly haven't gotten me killed yet, have they? Get in here and close the door, I don't want to wake her." Swiftly I turned towards the shower and began unraveling the linen bandages wrapped around my chest, letting out a frustrated sigh that made me remember to mind my own emotional upkeep; I could keep from losing my temper, but the night's events were weighing down heavily on me and remaining devoid of anger and negativity was becoming difficult again.

I heard the door snap shut an arm's length from me and pointedly moved out of reach, intent on keeping my personal space just that: Personal. One of the last things I wanted was to be within arm's reach of him while in a state of complete undress, no matter how much I cared for and trusted him; Those reasons probably contributed more to it than anything in fact, since despite my current condition and appearance, I was still a grown woman, and my feelings had never been sparked by appearance in the first place— They remained, stronger than ever, whilst I knew the same wouldn't be true on his end. It was safer for me if I kept my distance, because then at least it kept me from doing or saying something stupid and irreversible.

Modesty no longer being one of my strong points, I normally had less of a negative opinion about undressing in front of the opposite sex than most girls could claim; Problem was that before, I had every reason to feel self-conscious but couldn't care less, whereas now I looked even worse and couldn't make myself not care.

"Turn around." One arm clamped tightly over my nearly nonexistent chest, I turned on the shower with my bad arm, a task which proved difficult but not quite impossible. Behind me, Kakashi hadn't so much as _twitched_ to accommodate my request.

"...Please turn around? I'm not undressing while you watch." One good look back over my shoulder found Kakashi leaning back against the door, his uncovered eye glazed and most definitely out of focus. Daydreaming, or simply inattentive at the moment, he probably heard what I said about as much as he was actually seeing me.

Sighing softly, I unsnapped my sandals and slipped them off before stepping into the shower. Shutting the curtain behind me, I couldn't help but notice the waves of mud that washed off of my pants as the hot stream hit them and undid the drawstring waist to let them fall off of my undersized frame. The hot water was a bit of a shock to my skin, evidenced quite sharply by the red tint taken on by the scarred white flesh while I slipped off my panties and bent down to toss both articles out on the floor after wringing them out as much as I could in my weak hands.

Hospital showers didn't get this hot, mostly as a precaution against the medics and nurses inadvertently boiling their delicate patients alive... It also meant that I hadn't had such a chance to scorch away Sasuke's fingerprints in the time since he'd actually touched me, just like I hadn't been able to get rid of the cadaverous frigidity of his skin on mine.

As often as I tried, I couldn't remove it from my mind, and now it was even worse as I washed up and the soapy washcloth passed over where I could vividly remember the bruises, or the cuts, or even the teethmarks he had left. It was endless, the feelings of restraint and suffocation that came when I couldn't help thinking about it... I wasn't one to talk about fairness, usually, but this... what he'd done to me, was not fair. I couldn't even vent to someone or openly bitch about it either, because it never happened, of course.

It never happened... but there had to be something I could do to make sure it wouldn't 'not happen' again. It was in my head somewhere, among the plethora of medical jutsu and chaotic, unorganized smattering of less specialized elemental jutsu... Something to put Sasuke in his place for good, to make him realize what he was doing... Something to make him empathize with it...

_Empathy_...

I jumped abruptly when a brilliant idea came to me under the bubbling cover of shampoo suds falling down over my face— One that would positively cripple him if I could work it out just right. There wasn't any particular hurry for me to put it together, considering that my target wasn't even in the village, evidently, but even if he had been, the scrolls that I wanted were in my room and I wouldn't wake Ren to begin my research.

Casting a glance at Kakashi's silhouette through the curtain, I bit my lip and shut off the water, hoping beyond hope that what I was planning was well within the realm of jutsus too far removed from his area of expertise for him to recognize it without substantial help; I didn't need him or anyone else trying to stop me from what would essentially amount to ruining Sasuke's career, if not his life.

With a plan forming in my head I grabbed a towel and dried off, my mind singing with the theories and possibilities concerning my idea; I'd never heard of anyone succeeding with what I was going to attempt, but then, I'd never even heard of anyone even trying it.

I couldn't help the low chuckle that escaped me, though it wasn't indicative of glee so much as something darker, more sinister... If all went well, Sasuke would get a taste of my particular brand of teaching and how much more effective it could be.

"You seem to be in better spirits now." Smiling to myself, I stuck my hand out the shower curtain and he handed me my pile of clothes, exchanging them for the sodden towel I passed back out to him.

"Maybe I've just gone mad. We mad people laugh at nothing all the time, you know." I almost grimaced at the inherent joke he'd made in the pajamas he'd picked out for me, a tight red number with 'You can call me Your Highness' silkscreened in curly gold letters across the chest and a shiny gold crown emblazoned across the ass. Trust him to pick out the set I'd had my arm twisted to buy so that I would match the rest of the girls— Each of them had it in their respective favorite colors, and Ino had been adamant that I had been removed enough from the group for so long that I owed it to them to join in the tradition. Unfortunately, red was the only color left that was unique, so I had been stuck with it.

I guess they weren't that gaudy, or pubescent, or over-the-top, or... just plain not me. They were okay.

"You aren't mad." I frowned slightly, though it wasn't at him... or at least it wasn't at his observation. The underwear set, which I hadn't previously seen, were not cotton, or plain in the slightest. They weren't even a set which I remembered buying, although the shimmery pink lace was certainly pretty enough to catch my eye, and the set was far too small for it to have accidentally gotten mixed into my bag from either Ino's or Temari's. Not that I'd have ever made that mistake anyway, since neither of them would be able to survive without their underwired security blankets, let alone in something as inherently shapeless as a camisole.

"Of course I am, sane people don't survive shinobi life." I hadn't expected anything to fit, and of course I was right— Everything was just a teensy bit too loose, although the pajama set in particular was far too short. A long sleeve shirt became a crop-top with three quarter sleeves, long pants shrunk to a length somewhere between 'flood-pants' and 'capri-pants', and a camisole which was meant to fully cover the torso ended almost an entire inch above my navel. I can't say I was the most confident person in the world, pushing aside the curtain to emerge more exposed than I was entirely comfortable with, but I didn't have too much of a choice.

I hopped out of the shower after a short pause and busied myself with gathering up the strewn clothes on the floor before tossing them all in the laundry basket, salvageable or not. It could wait until morning, the laundry... Like most everything else, it could wait.

The world was swimming in front of my eyes as I tried to comb out my hair; I'd used too much energy, and the hot water had inevitably only made me more fatigued. My hair didn't even really need to be combed, considering that it was too short to even tangle. Wet and lying flat to my head, my bangs barely reached my eyebrows— There wasn't a hair on my head longer than the length from the tip of my index finger to the second knuckle. It was all sheared short.

"Feeling alright?" I shrugged, trying not to flinch outright when his hand fell onto my shoulder, right over three different bites... or at least the places they had been. Biting my lip rather than try to fake a smile I quickly shook his hand off under the guise of running my hand through my damp hair and ushering him out the door.

"Just... tired, that's all." I couldn't let on about what was really wrong, so I was limited to half-truths, at best. I detested it, but you only get what you give, as it were.

I purposely left the bathroom light on and the door mostly open before traipsing down the hall to open Ren's door, like I had said that I would. A moment of quiet listening assured me that she was still sleeping quite soundly, if not necessarily peacefully; She seemed to be tossing rather fitfully, yet another correlation between the two of us that was rather uncanny, if not downright unnerving.

"Finally time to take your meds and get some sleep?" I shrugged, reaching up and ruffling my still-damp hair before turning back down the hall to walk numbly into the kitchen.

"...Yeah, I guess it's about that time. I'd want to be able to get up when she does and preferably with the least amount of caffeine possible." My pills were all in the kitchen, still in the cloth bag I'd brought them home in, which I emptied onto a blank stretch of counter top without hesitation. An unappreciative 'hmph' sounded from over my shoulder, where keen eyes were reading every label that I did.

"...Excessive much?" Once again I shrugged dismissively, quickly sorting out the 'required' medication from the 'recommended' ones; At a ratio of four bottles to two, it wasn't particularly difficult to tell the two groups apart.

"Not really." The painkillers and sleeping pills were both only recommended, no matter how strongly so... The other four bottles were required, but I only had to take one pill from each per day; Two out of the four were vitamin and mineral compounds, not dangerous in the slightest. Looking all over quite thoroughly, I was surprised to find that there was only one that I was required to take before bed, although considering my situation, I decided that one of the painkillers certainly wouldn't hurt me any. I didn't want to take the sleeping pills because if I did, once I was out I was out until they wore off, a guaranteed eight to ten hours later. I didn't want Ren to be unable to wake me up if she needed me in the morning.

I heard nothing but an amiable silence as I swallowed the pills and began organizing the ones I would have to take first thing in the morning, which basically amounted to the rest of them.

Now... where to sleep? I'd given Ren my bed, and sleeping in my parents' bedroom was an idea that was a little more morbid than I was willing to entertain... Kakashi would still be sleeping in the guest room and I wasn't about to take away his bed or join him in it, which left...

"...'Night, see you in the morning." I deftly flicked off the kitchen light to deprive me of the ability to see the bloodstains and flopped down exhaustedly onto the couch, a squishy embroidered cushion I'd taken from the adjacent armchair lodged under my head and neck while I only absently noted that my blanket was still missing. Maybe they hadn't been able to salvage the color enough to bring it back... Pity. It had been comfortable.

"...What are you doing?" Though my eyes quickly got used to the dark, I didn't need to see to notice the couch cushions shift when he sat down on them, careful not to disturb my legs as he did. Behind him, in the portion of the living room I had been terrified to look into earlier, stood the silhouettes of various mismatched pieces of furniture and numerous stacks of boxes— Kakashi's possessions.

"Going to sleep. You should probably think about doing the same." I heard him sigh quite audibly in exasperation, an emotion that I'm sure was anything but foreign to him after having to put up with the genin team he had been situated with, some nine odd years ago.

"... I'm not sure what kind of game you're trying to play, Sakura, but I'm only going to say this once: I can not leave you alone. I'll give you ten seconds to get up and go to a proper bed under your own power before I'm forced to carry you." I frowned into the dark, crossing my arms over my chest with some difficulty as I debated to myself whether or not he was bluffing.

"You wouldn't— There's simply not enough reason for us to be in the same room when we're both asleep, for crying out loud. Don't waste your energy." Apparently he disagreed, because I wasn't even given any further warning before he hauled me up off of the couch and over his shoulder like an oversized sack of potatoes, unable to even struggle as he stood and strode back towards the bedrooms easily, as if I weighed nothing at all to him.

Inside I screamed, though I never actually made a sound— Complete helplessness had frozen my vocal cords and shortened my breath, like I was being suffocated. I needed down, now.

"...P-put me down." With my nails dug into the back of his vest to keep me grounded against the intense vertigo that was afflicting me, I had to struggle to speak even such a tacit request. The knee I nudged his chest with when he wouldn't stop went ignored, just as my verbal plea had, and shutting my eyes in a futile attempt to stop the floor from spinning so violently, I could only grip on tighter to the back of his jacket to keep myself from losing it.

None too soon did he unceremoniously drop me onto the guest bed, spots swimming in front of my eyes in colors that I was positive didn't exist in any true visual spectrum as my lungs shrieked at me to take a proper breath. I barely even noticed what he was doing over by the door as I tried to get up and promptly collapsed again, my arms and legs shaking too badly to even consider supporting my weight. Absently, under the cover of the natural rationale that I attempted to push onto everything I encountered, I found myself wondering for a moment whether some or all of this could be a side-effect of my medication; I couldn't bring myself to believe that I was physically reacting to an irrational, subconscious fear of helplessness.

"...Gonna live?" I hardly noted his sarcasm as I fought back the stomach contents that had leapt to my throat in their desperation to decorate the carpet, my throat closing up and making my situation worse as I did so. Strong hands gripping my shoulders inflicted an undeniable and terrifying sense of deja vu on me and the heavy sound of my own pulse in my ears blocked out everything else— I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe...

The caustic, manic laughter I heard as I stopped feeling made me hope that I wouldn't dream—

The familiar sensation of a warm hand caressing my face made me wish I wouldn't wake.

* * *

Looking at the latest name to be carved into the white marble of the family cenotaph, I had no more tears for her.

_13 days..._

Beyond the stone, the family cemetery had always frightened me, even as a child— I'd done all my crying out here instead of beside her tiny grave.

_We failed her..._

I was no longer a mother, and nobody could tell me why. My husband hadn't shed a tear, but he was broken inside.

_You failed him..._

He wanted a family and he'd lost it, again.

_It's your fault._

All I heard from my family was that we were young, there would be others—

_He's leaving._

But she was mine, and she was the one I wanted back in my arms, wailing her little blond head off.

_Uzumaki Nami_

_March 28 – April 09_

I wanted my husband to smile again. I wanted my family to look me in the face again.

_Nobody's here._

I needed someone to tell me it was alright again.

_Cry all alone, little girl._


	2. 21 Shift

_Would you find it in your heart_

_To make this go away_

_And let me rest in pieces?_

_**Rest in Pieces - Saliva**_

* * *

- 21 -

Something... was wrong. It had been ever since my memory was altered, or at least since the attempt was made.

Something started to break loose then.

It just started as a percussive, steady beat that I couldn't put a name to; It's comforting and soft, but it makes me feel sad for some reason I can't explain... Then there's the sound of breathing, but I couldn't tell you who the breath belonged to... It's just calm, that's all. I can remember words, but they make no sense and I can't identify the voice speaking them...

_This isn't what you want... it never has been. ...a mere imitation..._

With no context, I can't understand... But the words hurt, like they're physically capable of ripping part of me away... I know it's important, but I don't know how... Why. The bits and pieces are all I've got, but it's more than enough to know that at sometime, someone with considerable skill succeeded where Tsunade had failed, with some other memory that was probably just as important. Maybe back while I was in prison, I have no idea... That is where I learned the jutsu in the first place, after all... but regardless, something went wrong while I was in the hospital. Something cracked the seal enough to let latent emotions bubbling through.

Tonight though, was something even newer... So familiar but at the same time I have no clue why, the hand on my cheek that guided me to unconsciousness was not Kakashi's; I know it had something to do with the other fragments, and it made me feel so safe... If I fell into nightmares, for once I don't remember them. I think I actually _dreamed._

Needless to say, when I woke up I still didn't understand much more than I had the day before... In all honesty though, leaving the hospital did strike it from my mind fairly effectively and I didn't give it much thought. Not nearly as much as I should have, considering the significance of the situation.

I woke up alone, surprisingly enough... Kakashi had taken up a seat in an old metal folding chair at the end of the bed, leading me to wonder why he'd thought it was so important to manhandle me out of the living room when he was just going to sleep in a chair anyway... I didn't bother to wake him when I got out of bed and left the room, mostly because I was still a little angry about the night before.

I'd thought, however briefly, that there was some sort of mutual respect between us... Unfortunately either I was wrong or it just wasn't enough to warrant me worth listening to.

Grey skies faintly lit the horizon when I took a look out the hallway window, masking the incoming dawn with thick, dark clouds; We weren't in for very good weather today, although the promise of rain made the sticky, heavy air immediately more bearable. It also brought the comfort that I could use it as a viable reason to keep Ren inside and in sight. The closer I kept her to me, the more chances I'd have to learn more about her before I had to face the inevitable fact that Tsunade and everyone else were going to find out about her.

Early as it was, I had amassed a fairly large to-do list without having even done anything yet; Household chores, my rehabilitation exercises and any work that would undoubtedly belong to my personal agenda alone felt like they were bordering on 'overwhelming'...and then there was a sweet little girl needing my help and attention that I had absolutely no desire to say no to or turn away from.

Speaking of...

"You're awake awfully early this morning. Did you have a bad dream last night?" Sitting up in bed wide awake, playing with an old stuffed rabbit I'd had since I was a kid and couldn't make myself get rid of, Ren shook her head tiredly at me, her eyes half-glazed in fatigue.

"No... the people feel too loud here, so I woke up... but mommy says it's not nice to wake people up unless it's n'mergency so I play quietly like a good girl with the bunny." She held up the ratty old bunny in one hand as I approached her from the door, where I'd initially been surprised to see her awake at all.

"I don't mind if you come and wake me up in the morning, especially if you think someone's being too loud. I can go tell the neighbours to be quiet if they're bothering you." Firmly she shook her head, appearing all of a sudden to be distressed about something while she rung the stuffed toy between her hands.

"No, they're not loud like _that_, I don't _hear_ them! I- I feel them, in my head... I feel their cha... Their chakuu..." She held the sides of her head and screwed up her face in thought as she tried to remember the word that would sum up a situation she didn't fully understand... I was amazed and fascinated, unthinkingly supplying the word she was looking for.

"Chakra. You feel people's chakra." She blinked uncomprehendingly for a moment before she shot to her feet, bouncing up and down on the bed in excitement.

"Yeah, that's it! Chakra! Mommy says I'm sen-si-tive to it, like she is and she can feel people very very far away!" In an effort to keep her from alerting and waking up Kakashi I snatched the overexcited little girl from the bed and held her in my arms, once again surprised about how tiny and light she was. The faintly discernible scraping of a metal chair on wooden boards and shifting of the area rug in the hall told me all too clearly that the attempt was futile, and regardless of anything I did now, my house was up and awake for the day.

"Nii-san's awake...We has breakfast now? I want more soup." I heard Kakashi stop in his tracks before I turned towards the door, a tiny smile hidden from his general direction by Ren's expectant face as I felt ready to laugh, almost. Under normal circumstances he would no doubt have something to say about her choice of nicknames for him, especially since he'd already indicated that he didn't like her... but this situation was hardly normal and he just glared at her in his own detached way, shoulders slouched and hands in his pockets. He actually looked... sulky, for lack of a better word.

"Soup is... more of a supper food, kiddo. Let's try something a little more breakfast-y, alright?"

"...Like what?"

"Like oatmeal, fruit salad, pancakes... toast even." I tried to think what I'd have in the cupboards, considering my week-long absence and the tendency of most foods to be perishable, but I couldn't come up with anything more than what I'd already said. Honestly, I didn't know if I even had the basest of dry foods in my cupboards, considering the immaculate cleanup that seemed to have taken place, but I could always check.

"Mommy says sweets aren't good for breakfast."

"Well, sweets aren't good for you in general. Once in a while though, it's not a bad thing to have a treat, and my grandparents would have been the first to say that it's important for young girls to have their sweets." She smiled exuberantly and wrapped her arms around my neck tightly, her head resting on my shoulder and my stuffed rabbit swaying back and forth from her hand.

"I have cake?" There was something so childishly cute about her plea and the way she twirled her hair around her finger, there was no saying no.

"I'll do you one better. You can have pancakes, syrup and whipped cream, just like I had every morning before my..." I coughed softly into my hand and trailed out when I felt an uncomfortable stare boring into the back of my head... As much as I loved my late grandparents, I was fairly wary of mentioning my family to anyone... My teammates in particular. As far as I knew, none of them were particularly knowledgeable about my family situation... Naruto would probably draw a complete blank, Sasuke knew about my dad, but that's not saying much considering that everyone knew I was the resident schizo's daughter and Kakashi... Well he knew more than most, considering that my aunt was the entire reason I was placed on his team in the first place, but I doubt he knew much beyond that generation. My grandparents were memories I kept close to my heart... The only reason Itachi ever even knew about them was because they owned the house before he left the village, and he did live practically in my backyard.

"...Before I started living with my mom and dad." My amendment wasn't caught by the girl I was holding, but the silence lingering a few feet behind my back was tense, heavy and expectant. I was going to regret opening my big mouth at one point or another, because I could tell he was just dying to make me tell what I most pointedly hadn't.

Not entering the kitchen alone made the morning seem strange all by itself; Putting a four year old girl down in an old scarred kitchen chair made it feel like I'd lost years off of my life... Years that probably would have been fairly uneventful, speaking in relative terms, of course. Psychotic pseudo 'brother', weird undefinable relationship with a superior and friends who can't really make heads or tails of you anymore... I mean, that's nothing in the scheme of things, right?

...Another way to put it? My plans for the future were so fucked over I couldn't see them for all the holes.

"... Need some help?" As soon as I put her down, Ren attached herself to the markerboard I had given her last night and wasn't paying the slightest amount of attention to us, effectively leaving me alone with the unceasing, childish pout that made me want to duck under a blanket and hide... Instead I pulled out a box of yellowed old index cards and put it on the counter, extracting one with even-teenier-than-mine handwriting before handing it back over my shoulder.

"If you'd like to gather the ingredients..." For a moment I held the card, eyes closed to slits while I concentrated with guilty anticipation on the tense cloud hanging between us; I shouldn't want him to touch me in even the barest of ways, knowing that I was setting myself up for the fall... but temptation, guilty as it was, was still difficult to ignore completely.

The fleeting satisfaction afforded by the momentary contact we made as he plucked the card from my fingers was followed immediately by the desire for something more substantial than just the residual heat left on my fingertips... Not that there was a whole lot I could do about it.

Silence was imminent from that point on; I had too many feelings, emotions and memories hanging over my head to open my mouth in small talk and risk giving myself away, whereas Kakashi had abandoned the sulky stare in favour of more discreet attention when he thought I wasn't looking... not that it dissipated the expectant quality of the silence, a sensation that was intent on driving me mad with its sheer passivity.

Mechanically I pulled out the utensils and made every other preparation required to whip up one of my favourite recipes for the morning's breakfast, measuring ingredients by pure memory as they were handed to me to disappear into the sticky, bubbly batter. Even the overbearing density of the atmosphere couldn't pull me from my mind's near obsessive repeating cycle; Kakashi, unknown partial memories... lather, rinse, repeat. While I did the things I'd done a million times before, I kept revisiting what had been in an attempt to make more sense of it... With neither context nor substance however, my efforts amounted to the same as if I were trying to catch rainwater in a sieve.

Which brings me to the major reason Kakashi was half of the cycle; I needed something more... a bout of deja vu to forcefully crack the seal even further and let loose something for me to grasp on to... I'd say I wanted to have someone go and destroy the seal completely, but... There was something so _personal_ about the emotional ache that cropped up in my chest that I could honestly say I was afraid to let anyone else in that far. I was afraid of what they... _he_ might see through my eyes.

"Here you go, hot and sweet!" Considering how perplexed she'd been when faced with soup, I had expected something similar when I placed the plate of pancakes and promised toppings in front of her, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest as she knelt up on the chair to see her plate better.

"The cake is squish?" I bit my lip to stop the unseemly giggle that threatened to erupt when I realized that she thought I'd meant actual cake, and I returned to my cooking while she poked at the syrupy sweet treats with a fork that seemed far to large in her hand.

"It isn't _squished_, it's made flat like that. Don't let it get cold, okay?" She dove in eagerly after inspecting it closely... for meat, I suspect, considering her extremely vegetarian attitude the night before, and satisfied that she'd gotten over her initial trepidation, I turned back toward the calming and sedative work of cooking up another stack of pancake-y goodness.

Well, I _tried_.

"You seem a little... _distracted_ today. Something wrong?"

"When isn't there?" Adamantly I avoided meeting his gaze while I pretended to concentrate on not burning the food , though whether he noticed or even cared, I couldn't tell you. Either way, it didn't stop him from prodding.

"So what's bothering you? I can't read your mind."

"I have yet to meet a man who doesn't use that excuse at least once when he thinks he doesn't know what's going on but isn't actually as clueless as he makes himself out to be." There were too many issues... one I couldn't bring up, one I wouldn't bring up and a dozen others that were simply not important enough or difficult enough to address to someone else. Sasuke was an issue he was partially involved with, and so it was something easy to fall back on. He'd understand that issue, he'd guess it.

"Is that it? Just her?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"Not to warrant the way you're behaving. You _know_ what kind of person he is..." He tapped the side of my neck where a four-point curse seal had been clearly visible until not long ago and my body seemed undecided between flinching in pain or shivering with something a little less welcome.

"... So why would _anything_ last night surprise you?"

"I never said it surprised me, but I'd be worried for my own health if it hadn't _disturbed_ me as deeply as it did." Absently I rubbed my neck, anxiously trying to dissipate the residual signature of his touch and the goosebumps that came with it while still fully aware that aggravating him was both all I could do right now and also not the smartest thing I've ever done.

"I _know_ that's not the only thing bothering you."

"I'm a woman, of course it isn't. It just happens to be the most recent and the highest mental priority at the moment." There was an awkward sort of pause and I only faced him to hand him his breakfast plate without actually meeting his scrutinizing gaze, a feat which proved slightly difficult with our eyes now only having _maybe_ an inch of difference in height between them.

"...You aren't usually this secretive."

"You don't know that." The silence returned, but before where it was expectant it was now stunned and maybe a little a disappointed... Even Kakashi looked that way as he wandered back to the table, obviously confused and ever-so-slightly irritated with me.

Outside, my prediction for wet weather proved true when fat water droplets began to spill onto the glass of the kitchen window in an abstract, staccato beat that quickly devolved into a meaningless hum of spatter. Silently I unlocked and opened it, trying to coax what little cool breeze I could into the room.

Even the mild air coming in felt deliciously cool against the small patches of skin exposed to it and I shut the stove off, since I hadn't really been that hungry in the first place... I knew I should eat, but everytime I even entertained the idea my stomach would lurch so threateningly that I'd dismiss the idea immediately. My actions didn't go unnoticed, unfortunately.

"Not eating?"

"...I'll eat later. The painkillers make keeping food down a little difficult." I hadn't actually taken any when I got up, but he didn't know that and I didn't care to enlighten him; I got enough grief from Tsunade for eating only half the meals she brought me, and even more when most of those came back up fully intact. It was worse in the mornings though, and it usually didn't have much to do with my medication, so I should be able to get myself off the hook later on. Luckily, the pain was dull enough that I wouldn't blow my story by actually needing to take something.

"Don't look at me like that, I will. Eat up and cease with the forced concern, it's kind of condescending." Defensive gesture or not I wasn't sure, but I found that by the time confusion broke up the severe dismay staring back at me, I had put a rare amount of distance between us and even barred us physically with my arms lain cautiously across my chest.

I have to admit, there was a part of me that was scared, both of him and of everything I had to hide or else be figuratively crucified for it... But that part of me was small and easily bullied by the more abrasive and dominant cockiness that just dared me to spill my most dangerous secrets out simply to see what happened; How fast my good standing could crash around my feet and leave me to what my colleagues viewed less desirable would term my baser nature.

It was widely agreed upon, after all, that I was never meant for the structure and overall harmony of village life; I belonged more to the criminal scum of the population than the thieves and murderers with which I'd been raised. Maybe in some way I'd been trying to disprove that by coming back... In truth though, I think I missed the strategically absent element of chaos that the friends I could no longer see brought to my life.

Here, I was displaced. I didn't really belong anymore. I saw differently, I heard differently, I even thought differently. Here was okay... but it wasn't my place, just as I suspect it wasn't really the place for a certain redhead with questionably sane heritage. For her though, I couldn't be certain until I observed her more extensively.

"Where did you live before, kiddo? It must have been a pretty long trip to come here, wasn't it?" Jolting to a straight sit in surprise, I imagine she, and Kakashi in fact, since he stopped fairly abruptly as well, had not expected me to speak. After a moment of thoughtful chewing on her part and a questioning look on his, she dropped the pancake she'd been holding rolled up in her hand and licked her syrup-laden palm before the sweet stuff started dribbling down her wrist.

"I dunno. Mommy didn't like it though. She didn't think it was pretty enough."

"Why not? Did you live in a city?" Personally, the thought that civilian cities were the ugliest places on earth wasn't a new one for me; All the bland, dull greys and browns melting into one another, the harsh stone and concrete only cut by the interspersal of entire buildings made of steel and glass... There was nothing even approaching _beauty_ in a village of millions.

"...I dunno. Mommy called our house a 'shack' and said I was supposed to live somewhere better... _I_ thought it was pretty there..." A smile ghosted my face as she tapped her jutted out bottom lip and left a shiny smudge of stickiness there, a look of childlike doubt in her furrowed pale eyebrows.

"What did it look like? I can't imagine anyplace you thought was pretty could be that bad." She turned a pale pink and stared down at her plate, mumbling so softly that I could scarcely hear her.

"Um... our house was brown, and the roof was made of dead grass all tied up in bunches... but the door was red, like the dirt in the path in front of it... the trees were my fav'rite though, they weren't all green and stuff like here though, they were black and yellow, like a bumblebee that goes bzzz and ouch!" She started to ramble a bit about insects and other small critters that stung and bit with a morbid amount of enthusiasm that at her age I was directing towards kittens and less creepy crawlers. More importantly, she was describing a place that I was familiar with through study if not specifically with any intimacy... More because of the medicinal tree she liked so much than because of the mudbrick flats and rust-coloured dirt.

Grass country, most likely near the border where a combination of disagreeably arid clime and the ravaged lands of old battlegrounds made large villages difficult to maintain; The sheer toxicity of the soil as a result of poison and explosion damage from the wars fought there made the area unsuitable for most edible vegetation or farmed livestock and so settlements of any size were rare... Or so every textbook I'd ever read detailed, anyway.

"I've seen those trees, they are very pretty aren't they? There weren't many people there though, were there?" She shook her head.

"Not a lot... but they were all mean. They didn't like me." All at once a distressing loneliness entered her dark eyes and her doll-like mouth turned down in a pout, leaving me to suppress any further until the wounds weren't quite so fresh.

"Sometimes... it's difficult for people to understand what they've never seen before." Knowing a four year old would not fully understand just how close-minded adults could be and by extension, the children they raised, I crossed behind her chair and ruffled her bed-rumpled candy apple red locks with what I only now realized were woefully desiccated and ruined fingernails.

"Cheer up though. _ I _like you a lot, I promise."

_Suck up._

I rolled my eyes and glared back at the sarcasm dripping from Kakashi's silent pantomime as he mouthed words I'd heard so many times before that I'd stopped counting before I graduated the academy. I made more waves than I avoided anymore, simply because of the natural friction I seemed to create with nearly everyone; There was some sadistic sense of pleasure behind the joy I got from pushing all the right (or wrong) buttons... particularly with people like Deidara and Tsunade, whose tempers could have _explosive_ results.

Hey, I can piss off psychopaths and call it _fun_. Of course I'm not in my right mind... Probably don't even have one any more, now that I think about it...

Any response to Kakashi's show of smartassery was hindered by two things: One, even if she had gone back to eating, Ren was still very sharp and _very_ likely to pick up on any vengeful verbal attack I could send back across the table. Two, even meaningless attacks and groundless bickering tempered bonds and created relationships where otherwise they would remain static or simply not exist. I refused to worsen an already difficult situation by retaliating.

"I think some tea might settle me a bit. Anyone want some?" An itchy rasp entered my voice and I cleared my throat before filling up the old steel kettle that had been around since I was in diapers; Absently I rubbed the large dent I'd put in it the first time I ever made tea by myself and smiled... It wasn't the only thought that entered my head though, and suddenly I found myself with the pressing need to see if I had any of... not _my_ favourite tea, but the stuff Itachi liked. He always liked his tea sweeter, headier and oftentimes he preferred fruit flavours to my more practical choices... Apple, raspberry, lemon... Usually I didn't care much for them, but I just... wanted some.

"No mint? Shocking."

"I don't feel like mint today. Are you having a cup?" He shook his head and I opened the half-empty box of apple cinnamon tea that had probably catered to my mother's tastes, extracting a bag with a deep breath. Thick and sweet-smelling, it fit my needs surprisingly well.

"... Is today a holla-day?" An absent glance over my shoulder revealed Ren to be looking at me with a nervous frown on her face, her utensils abandoned to her empty plate and her hands clutching the seat of her chair tightly enough to turn her chubby little fingers white.

"No... It's not a holiday today. What's wrong?"

"Speshul 'ccasion colours." I obviously didn't understand and quickly she hopped out of her seat, only to run up to me and tug on my pajama shirt and the visible hem of the camisole I wore underneath. Immediately, it struck me like only the most elusive of epiphanies possibly could.

"Oh! No, honey... there aren't really any special occasion colours here, it's a little different... anyone can wear any colour they want."

She'd as good as told me she was destitute, or at least close enough that it didn't matter about the exact words I used to describe it; The lilac yukata she'd been wearing had most likely been the most expensive outfit she'd ever worn despite its modest manufacture, and rather than just a nice summer outfit it was a canvas covered in rare and precious dyes and threads.

Her mother had brought her wearing her best... to impress her father? I could only speculate, there was no saying for sure.

"Even pink?" She looked up at me in doubtful enquiry and I couldn't help but smile; She had her father's eyes, but with none of the anger or malice that filled the bottomless black. She reminded me of when we were little... Before my grandparents died, and before he was left to stew in the obsessive despair Itachi left him with.

Things were simpler when I was five years old.

"Yes, even pink." For a moment, light purged the warm depths of her eyes of all doubt and she smiled excitedly before another question came and she tugged eagerly at my shirt again.

"So how do you know when it _is_ a holla-day?" For a moment, while my kettle squealed and I offhandedly made my tea, I actually had to think about it.

"Well... it's less about what people wear and more about the special things they do... Like giving chocolates on Valentine's day, or telling ghost stories at Halloween." Summer festivals were the only glaring exception I could think of... For the most part, special occasions were defined by the established activities and traditional gifts given on those days.

" I wanna see, I wanna see soon!" I smiled easily, if not without quite a bit of uncertainty directed at her enthusiasm as I was reminded exactly how long I had dealt almost exclusively with adults. She was certainly an amazing breath of fresh air.

"I think there should be a festival coming up soon... there's usually one to kick off summer every year."

"Yeah, first day this year even coincides with your wedding." Shocked and very justifiably so, I barely missed Ren with the mouthful of hot tea that I sprayed into the sink I stood beside, choking on the hot liquid I had tried to swallow and instead inhaled.

"...What's a wedding?"

"A ceremony where two people who pretend to like each other make promises that they never intend to keep." The clinging made it a little difficult to just round on him and get the answers I demanded... not that my favourite methods of interrogation could or should be viewed by any five-year-old, nor would they necessarily pry loose any info he hadn't been given permission to disclose anyway. Especially considering that I looked about as threatening as the wide-eyed child looking up at my venomous tone of voice in utter confusion. I swallowed fiercely to force myself to calm and ask the questions that I needed to, since he wouldn't have brought it up if I wasn't supposed to find out at all.

"What do you mean, 'it coincides with my wedding'? What wedding?!" He looked more than a little bitter about my tone... quite a mimicry of his own, as a matter of fact.

"In two weeks, the supposed biggest wedding of the _year_, is _yours_. You're lucky nobody in the village saw you last night coming home... Everyone's been looking for you to give their congratulations since Tsunade announced everything earlier this week. By the way, congra—"

"Give me a fucking congratulations and you're going to take a goddamned apple cinnamon shower!" Hot liquid sloshed over the lip and over both my hand and wrist when I slammed it down onto the countertop, where the loud cracking sound of the shatterproof glass against the faux granite was punctuated by a juvenile shriek and another lacklustre frown hidden behind a mask.

Anger flared like dry kindling, and it wasn't just the blistering pain crawling up my forearm; I wasn't told about any of this... She'd brought it up so ..._casually_, almost cautiously, stating it like I had some _choice_ in the matter! It had already been announced publicly, and she couldn't even bring herself to say anything... Not once, while I was confined to that stupid hospital room, did she say _anything_ to me!

"...Nee-chan?" Angry or not, my chest immediately sunk under the pressure of the anxious fright present in Ren's voice and too late I remembered myself and my temper.

"I'm sorry. It's alright, nothing's wrong."

_Liar._

The muscle under my right eye twitched almost painfully and I turned to the sink to ignore the piercing stare searing my spinal cord from the bottom up; He'd moved his hitai-ate just enough for me to know he'd done it and for it to irritate my skin beyond belief.

"Hey kiddo, if you're done eating I could use some help. How 'bout it?" Perplexed, almost frightened nodding accompanied the jittery shifting of her gaze between me and Kakashi while she held onto my legs and began to circle behind me, _away_ from him.

"Enjoy your breakfast."

"Sakura..." I shook my head in a very strict warning, my jagged nails digging sharply into my palms in an attempt to keep a hold on my temper while I glared with all the placidity I could muster that was pointedly not being returned to me.

"I'm _not_ pursuing this conversation, or any other for that matter. If it counts for anything though, you can tell our _boss_ that I preferred her when she still had the stones to do the dirty work herself. This is _low_, and she knows it." He knew it too, which made it all the more despicable.

" Alright, hold on a second—"

"Forget it. I have nothing else to say to either of you."

I'll admit it— I tend to drop whatever I've learned about subtlety once things become too emotionally involved... It gets difficult to remain rational and even more difficult to put to bed the more violent tendencies ingrained into me as a young girl.

You never truly escape your nature, whatever it is.

There were no more words exchanged as I led Ren out of the kitchen and down the hall. A quick glance back revealed him to be leaning with his elbows on the table, forehead in his hands. In an hour, when I'd be finished with the first half of laundry I'd go to look for him and he'd be gone entirely— Nowhere on the property until well after sundown, although it would be debatable whether or not that was enough for me to cool off entirely. I knew where he was.

For now, the short version of my day should be sufficient to relate— It's one of those 'you don't want to hear it, I don't want to tell it' kind of things, boring as hell and worrisome at the very best.

We kept busy, and the house was spotless when we were done, but Ren refused to say much of anything throughout the day. At first the silence was frightened; I, or we, had spooked her quiet so that the most she responded to me was to cling to whatever limb of mine happened to be closest and intermittently bite her fingers... I surmised that it must have been an old habit though, since the skin around her fingernails was pale, mostly visible scar tissue. She didn't bite her _nails_, just the skin around them.

Eventually the silence became thoughtful and she looked like she was concentrating on something she couldn't see, but was nonetheless following through the walls. When asked what she was up to, she said the most she had since breakfast: There was someone very loud and very sad , she said, and he was just going in circles. At first I couldn't understand and she could only repeat herself, getting more and more frustrated when she couldn't adequately articulate herself— Eventually it struck me that it must be difficult to explain something so far beyond our normal spectrum... Especially for such a young girl, who couldn't possibly be as acquainted with her unique abilities as she would be when she got older.

I didn't broach the subject again... not right away, anyway. Later on down the line she'd mention the loud chakra again and peg a face to it that I'd have already figured out at that point... But that wouldn't be until just after the wedding, two weeks down the line. It might seem odd, to say that it took two weeks for Ren to meet someone who I can personally say is a very _distinctive_ figure in a very _small_ town, but I'll get there when I get there.

I coaxed Ren into bed early, when the outward symptoms of your typical head cold started to manifest and I concluded that she'd caught it while down in the chill of the well I'd found her in. I treated her as well as I could and let her take the stuffed rabbit to bed for... comfort, if you'd like to think that, but I couldn't _do_ very much. There is no cure for the common cold, after all, and I'm a medic, not a miracle worker.

So at this point it's sundown and Ren is fast asleep with a stomach full of vegetable broth and a child's dose of cold syrup; I put chakra-inhibiting seals on all four walls of the room so that nothing was getting in or out while they remained intact... I suppose I was hoping they would help her sleep by cutting out the 'noise' she felt.

It would turn out in the morning that I wasn't wrong, to say nothing else. When she woke up she'd be utterly clueless as to anything that went on after I shut her in her room.

As for that, I continued working so I couldn't think too much and when my underenergized body became too fatigued to do any more heavy lifting or the like, I smelled like an old sock you might've found in Naruto's laundry before he got married, which is about as gross as it gets. Hot bath, candlelight in a dark room to minimize the side-effects of my photo-sensitivity and no energy to speak of... It wasn't really any surprise that I didn't notice Kakashi's return.

By the time I got out of the bath, my reflexes and cognitive sense were so impaired that I could barely walk; Someone could've held a knife to my throat and I probably wouldn't have noticed or cared...

I didn't notice that my bedroom wasn't empty when I collapsed on the bedspread with absolutely no intention of moving beyond that point, not even to crawl up to the pillows or trade my towel for a night shirt. It was surreal actually, how one second I was alone and the next I was falling sideways into the valley created by his weight imposed upon the space beside me, my movement lifeless as a ragdoll's. I was too tired to make out much more than his hair and the white mask pulled away from his face at first, but sluggish recognition gave me a reason to come to and back away from his as fast as I was capable.

A heavy leather glove cut off my reflexive scream before it even happened and I found myself pinned against the pillow pile, paralysed as I was unable to do a thing to help myself; Nothing says friendly like a black ops uniform and brute force, after all.

"Settle down, and don't wake up the kid. I can't talk to you if you're going to get all jumpy on me."

Not 'we can't talk', but 'I can't talk to you'. Apparently he thought he was the one in charge here, and while he assessed me, deciding whether or not I was going to be a good girl and stay quiet... I was tempted to let him.

Until I remembered that I was mad at him...

And I was mostly naked...

And he was pinning me to my own goddamned bed in an outfit that was simultaneously terrifying and undeniably attractive.

I'm honestly surprised that my fist ever connected, considering the state I was in. I wasn't surprised, however, when he retaliated by twisting both of my wrists in one hand, my mouth still covered and my legs now pinned under one knee while blood started to slowly soak his dark mask. In the aspect of my mind that wasn't paying attention to the pain, the entire situation was uncomfortably hot... especially when I tried to test him and he twisted my arms further, bordering right on the seam of breaking them.

I never would have thought I was that kind of girl.

"Alright, listen up. I'm assuming you know what chloroform does, being such a talented young medic and all, and barring your recent lack of faith in me I can also assume that you'd know if I was lying to you." He moved faster than I registered when he actually produced a recognizable bottle of the aforementioned agent and left it sitting on my chest before covering my mouth again, very obviously irritated with me and just as obviously enjoying the extreme power shift in effect between us. If I had been more capable of paying attention, I might have honestly considered trying to shift it in the other direction, and maybe change the tone of this forced confrontation.

"It's up to you whether I even open that bottle or not. Be good and don't try that again, and you'll remain in the loop. Fight me one more time and you'll be out colder than ice until I'm done with you. Capiche?" After a moment of internal debate, I could only force myself to believe that ignorance was not bliss; I knew that there was nothing sexual even implied by what he was planning, and I had better be conscious for it. I nodded concisely to alert to him my understanding of the situation, and he let go of my wrists.

"First things first; Get dressed." He let go of me and left the bed with barely so much as a second glance in my direction. Sitting up slowly, I was careful to keep the towel pressed to my body while he left the room and I willed my breathing to slow to a manageable pace. Whatever he was up to, he was being too forceful about it— It seemed odd to me, his behaviour... but maybe I was deluding myself to make more sense of my side of the equation. That situation was just plain unfair, whether he knew it explicitly or not. I knew he had at least the vaguest idea; He's anything but stupid, and I'm not the first woman he's wrapped around his little finger by far.

When he came back I was still in my towel, rifling through the clothes I'd hung in what used to be my parents' closet; I didn't even notice the scroll he'd laid out on the bed with the same cold demeanour he'd spoke to me with when he pinned me down a moment past while I was trying to find something that wouldn't slide off my stick-like frame.

"Pack up enough clothes for the both of you. Two or three days worth, don't worry about anything past that." One order and he was gone again, leaving me with no idea what he was making me do it for. So much for keeping me in the loop.

I didn't have much choice in the clothes department; For Ren I only had shorts and t-shirts that could be adjusted so they didn't fall off of her, since I hadn't taken an opportunity today to go shopping for anything kid-sized and for myself I was in much the same predicament. If it didn't have a drawstring waist then it would fall off, and most everything was too short; I ended up just dropping a few dresses onto the scroll along with requisite pairs of undergarments and the pyjamas I'd put aside for Ren before waiting for Kakashi to come back and seal them into the scroll. I didn't wait long.

"You're not dressed."

"What am I getting dressed for?" It wasn't a challenge, it was a question. Nonetheless, he felt the need to reinforce his previous threat by pulling out the glass bottle he'd hidden away when he left me to the bed, and I amended my question.

"What kind of conditions am I supposed to be getting dressed for?"

"It doesn't matter, just get dressed or you're going as you are." Consciously I pulled my towel up, aware of how exposed I was. He didn't bother to turn away while he started to seal the clothing I'd set aside into the rolled paper lying across the bed, and even seemed to feel the need to remind me of the stakes once again.

"Don't get shy now, you had your chance to do that. You have until I'm done before your chances are up." Frustrated and in no position to protest, I had no choice but to finagle my undershirt and a t-shirt over my towel before letting drop, making an attempt to hide my body underneath the oversized shirt while I slipped on underpants and a skirt I'd just pulled out of the first drawer my fingers met in the dim half-light. I was sure I didn't match or even look presentable, but I couldn't much care in light of the circumstances.

Time was barely on my side— As soon as I was finished pulling on my skirt, Kakashi was pushing me out the door and through the house, not stopping to let me even don a pair of shoes. When I did try to stop, the now-familiar brown bottle was in his hand in less than a second while his other hand wrapped firmly around my upper arm, strangling the already fatigued muscles of circulation while he herded me out of my own house.

Outside, the only thing in the street was a covered cart, of the sort caravan merchants regularly employ for their businesses. That was the last straw.

"What are you doing?! Let go of me, what is this for?!" He didn't bother with the chloroform when I wrenched my arm out of his grip— The sheer force I had to use and the fact that he just let go sent me staggering. It was nothing to him to swoop in and incapacitate my motor abilities before putting me in a position that was far to close to him without having so much as an air molecule between us. The feral edge to his voice when he growled in my ear was not manufactured; I was getting on his last nerve.

"I'm kidnapping you, my _dear_." It was momentary, the shift between sapphire night and pitch-black cart; My knees and hands scraped on roughshod wooden slats when I was shoved in and pain exploded from the top of my skull where I hit the back wall. Vaguely I hoped that the bloody nose I'd given him was actually broken while I realized that soft breathing was providing a soundtrack for rapidly incoming unconsciousness: Ren's silhouette sprawled on a blanket was the last thing I saw before Kakashi shut the curtain and hot liquid began to splash on my hand... I was bleeding.

_No regrets, remember?_

_No regrets._

Another night I'd dream of memories I didn't have.

* * *

"Naruto!" This entire mess, while understandable, was getting ridiculous. If being his cousin-in-law meant stopping it, I would.

"Naruto, listen. I know we've never been the best of friends, and this is probably something you'd prefer to hear from one of your teammates, but... they _aren't_ _here_. Hinata needs you with her, this isn't just your problem!" They were my family now and whatever my husband might say, they couldn't deal with this themselves without a swift kick in the ass. For the hundredth time since the funeral alone I looked at the blond sitting beside a fresh gravestone and was struck by the pure morbidity of the situation; It was terrifying, and sad.

"... Go away." It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but hearing _something_ was one hell of an improvement. Nonetheless, he still needed a reality check, and I couldn't really help what I did— I was angry with him and even post-pregnancy, the hormones are just vicious.

"What the hell was that for?!" He held a hand to the oddly shaped white mark on his cheek that was rapidly turning red; I'd only hit him with half my hand but the shooting pain in my wrist from the impact would testify that his head was made of rock... Not that I hadn't figured that out already.

"Smartening you up! Hinata is desperate, she thinks she's losing you, and there isn't anything in the world she fears more than that! You lost Nami, don't let Hinata do something stupid when she can't live it anymore!"

"You're pretty keen on yelling at me when you haven't lost anything yourself." Another white mark rapidly joined the first and I was amazed by his lack of resistance when he fell back against his daughter's gravestone.

"I have three children I would gladly give my life and the lives of anyone else for; If anything were to happen to any of them, I'd be beside myself but at least I wouldn't be abandoning my husband when he's going through the same thing! Stop being such a fucking prick and help your wife, she's mourning too!" I left then, having said my piece; I needed more than anything to see my children, to reassure myself of what I knew, that nothing had happened to them in the fifteen or twenty minutes I'd been away from them to go find Naruto and yell at him on Hinata's behalf. When it was Neji I found first, he made me realize that maybe it wasn't so much Hinata's point I was fighting for.

"You're crying." Angrily, I wiped my eyes of the tears I hadn't realized were cropping up with the sleeve of the light pink yukata I was wearing while I cursed the hormones that were still causing juvenile behaviour even after the twins were born. I _never_ cried.

"I think... you may have gotten through to him." Strong hands pulled me in while calculating eyes were concentrating on the twilight outside of the rice paper door I'd closed upon entering the house; He was watching, waiting to see if Naruto was following me. Suddenly anxious for his attention as much as I was my childrens', I pulled back, burying my face in the soft material draped over his shoulder.

"It was stupid... but I can't keep watching Hinata blame herself; She needs him."

"It wasn't stupid— It worked... Is he blushing?" A hiccup morphed into a halfhearted laughing sob when long fingers threaded through my hair, stroking the back of my neck gently; I seldom wore my hair up when I wasn't out of the house... I'd learned a long time ago that he preferred it down and loose.

"My temper got away with me, and I slapped him. A couple of times." I wasn't normally known for my temper, not like some of the other girls... It took a lot for it to get away from me.

"He's coming through the garden... let's give him some privacy so that it doesn't look like we're hounding him. Baby steps." The door opened behind us when I let myself be turned around and led away; I didn't say anything and neither did anyone else, but Naruto didn't walk right past us like I expected him to... He trailed behind slowly, as if still hesitant about coming back to the house. It didn't take long for someone to come along that I half-expected to undo all our progress and send him running again.

"Mommy no slee-eep!" The steps following us halted while tiny pattering ones approached me at a run from down the hallway, with a huge fuzzy teddy bear dragging on the floor behind them. Larger steps, a woman that I could never remember the name of, followed shortly behind and started apologizing immediately without my permission— I wasn't even listening. I never really had set much store in the way the family preferred to run things.

"Aki-chan, what are you doing out of bed? It's late, sweetie." Enormous brown eyes pouted at me while he evaded the grasp of the woman trying to get ahold of him and took a flying leap at me, one which was thankfully intercepted. I was still in enough pain that he was just too much of a strain to pick up and carry, to my regret. The steps that had been following us retreated down the hall in the other direction, no doubt looking for a roundabout way to get to his own apartments; Both he and Hinata had been more than a bit touchy about my kids since the... accident, with good reason.

"You know better than to jump on your mother like that, Akihiko." I dismissed the servant woman looking perplexedly at our family interaction as she always had; perhaps it was the reason I never seemed to remember her name. I just didn't like her and how she expected to raise my children in my place.

"Mo-meee..." I couldn't ignore the pudgy grasping hands that reached for me, even considering my condition, though Neji was hesitant to hand him over even when I reached back.

"He's too heavy, you'll rip your stitches."

"Please?" I knew I might rip my stitches, but I couldn't say no. I _wanted_ to hold him.

Opalescent eyes compromised where an irritated sigh just gave in and I was overjoyed to have pudgy arms circling my neck and a smudgy, gooey kiss gracing my cheek once again; I hadn't actually held him since I was about halfway through my pregnancy, not that now really counted as me holding him— Neji was supporting most of his weight and keeping fidgety feet from kicking me where my cesarean stitches were still fairly fresh.

"Mommy, story." It was the demand of a spoiled rotten three and a half year old, but I could never even imagine saying no to such a sweet face. Neji tried to pull him away and he started to cry, his happy face morphing to rage in less than a fraction of a second.

"Noooo! Mo-mmeee!!!"

"It's okay, I'm coming to tell you a story but Daddy has to carry you. You're too heavy for Mommy." Instantly the waterworks ceased and Neji grumbled; It had always been a point that I could hold over his head if I wanted to, my ability to calm our oldest with next to no effort and just a few words... Not that I would ever do such a thing. It was interesting though, seeing him falter with something he perceived himself imperfect with, despite the fact that fatherhood was good for him. He was softer now, more patient and willing to understand. It made others see what I had always been able to.

"They're talking now. Don't be too long, you need your sleep too." He put Akihiko down when we broached his bedroom door and laid a dutiful peck on both of our foreheads before leaving us; He wasn't much of one for more affectionate gestures than that beyond closed doors, but I liked that just fine. He was most likely off to wish Hiashi well and offer a prayer that his health held up through the night... The Hyuuga leader's condition was rapidly deteriorating, and everyone knew that he had only a matter of days left. Knowing how much pain he was in, my own prayers contained a wish that he pass quickly, with as little unnecessary suffering as possible, but blood has a tendency to project different wishes upon the dying. A miraculous recovery, for instance.

"Daa-ee night-night?" I nodded while my toddler wrapped himself around the sliding door to watch Neji leave— His idea of being stealthy, I suppose. The light wasn't on and probably hadn't been since he'd been sent to bed the first time; I switched on the nightlight that Neji had insisted throughout my pregnancy that his kids would never need and smiled brightly as Akihiko took the cue to leap at his bed, scrambling up the side while trying to diligently keep a hold on his teddy.

"I waa hear bou' a princess!" For a moment I balked, unused to this sort of request at bedtime; If it was one thing he didn't like hearing about, it was icky girls.

"A _special_ princess? What's she like?" I'd humour him, since anything was a refreshing change from ninja stories. He'd hear enough of those when he got older.

"Princess gots red hair like strawbewwies an' its weeeee-ul long!" He jumped up and made a hugely exaggerated gesture when describing his make-believe princess's hair, prompting a laugh out of me that was the first one that night. I'd never get tired of his imagination, because he certainly didn't get it from me.

"I see... And, does this pretty princess have a name?" I grabbed him and pulled him back down to the bed to try and calm him down, knowing that he'd never actually sleep if I left him as was. His enthusiasm wasn't dampened by the playfully sedated mood, though he did look like he had to put a lot of thought into his little princess's name.

"She said it's Ren, and she's wearing a powpow dwess." There was something freakishly chilling about the way he said it; Like she wasn't a character but a real person that he knew. His face said exactly that as I tried to keep a smile on my face.

"Ren, huh? That's... sort of a strange name. Is she your friend?" He didn't notice my discomfort as he nodded eagerly, hugging his teddy like it was a surrogate for some other, _real_, person.

"She gonna be."

The sheer confident force behind his statement creeped me out; It was unnatural, plain and simple. I could barely speak for the suffocating pressure on my throat— I felt like something was going to happen.

"Well, since you know so much about... Ren, and I don't know much at all... Why don't you tell me the story?" It was uncomfortable even saying the name, but Akihiko was, strangely enough, more than willing to indulge me.

"Ren is a princess, an' she gots a nee-chan dat luvs her very very much! She new, so she doesn't gots friends yet..."

He rambled on in disturbing detail about a girl with an equally disturbing family life; Where he could have possibly picked up such an undesirable scenario, I had no idea, and by the time I had tucked him into bed sound asleep, I was shaking like a leaf.

"...That was a long story." Neji was waiting for me when I left Akihiko's bedroom, his face even paler and more drawn than normal; I could only imagine that Hiashi's condition had worsened again, but the expression he gave was concentrated— He wouldn't let me ask even if I was adamant about it. Instead the conversation went to my problems; Our relationship seemed to default to that scenario, no matter what was going on.

"I'm... sort of worried about Aki. He's made up an imaginary friend, but the stories he tells about her... I think he's hearing things that are way too mature for him, and it's sort of disturbing, the way he's applying it to his imagination! I couldn't come up with a story that weird to save my life, but it sounds like... he's been reading murder mysteries or something!" The part about 'Ren's' mother having been murdered was particularly stomach-churning; I didn't even think Akihiko was old enough to appreciate just what death was yet.

"...He's an exceptionally smart child, and he's almost four. It's probably just a case that he's listening too hard to adult conversations and absorbing more than you'd like him to. He probably made up a friend because we've been spending so much time with the twins and he's lonely. Or jealous." I shifted my weight uncertainly, somehow feeling like that wasn't the entire issue. There was something... _off_ about 'Ren' and how _real_ my son made her.

"I don't think you need to worry about him. He'll be fine."

_He'll be fine... _

I certainly hoped so.


	3. 22 Fragment

_**GR's Note: **I don't quite know when chapter 23 will be finished and posted, my schooling makes _

_for an unreliable writing schedule. In any case, enjoy!_

* * *

_You're so cold but you feel alive_

_Lay your hand on me one last time_

_**So Cold – Breaking Benjamin**_

* * *

- 22 -

I've never had this dream before.

Where I'm sitting in a clearing staring at a corpse that's been blown apart from the inside, its pieces strewn everywhere in a circular area around the body. Two men in hoods and robes sit on either side of the body, heads down as if they don't notice me while I'm compelled to pull a Frankenstein and put all the pieces back together.

It's not like she's a real body though; It's more like a teaching dummy, where all the parts fit neatly inside with no mess and no blood. I'm positive that it's a woman, despite the lack of anything protecting the chest cavity that might be gender distinctive and an apparent lack of any reproductive organs whatsoever... She doesn't even have a face, and her hair is too androgynous to tell much. It's as white as her skin, but that doesn't say anything.

There is a certain... madness that strikes while working on a cadaver; At least it seems that way to me, and I've worked in at least three different hospital morgues since beginning my career. As I would take the pieces out for the autopsy, the corpse would become less human, in a way, and quickly it would be just a shell devoid of parts, life and a soul. This time I was working in reverse, and the entire process was moving backwards. In went the liver, and a mouth materialized on the curved, smooth plane that was her face; Replacing the lungs gave her cheekbones, intestines brought forth sunken, closed eyes and scars appeared individually as I placed her other pieces back where they belonged— When I had run out of pieces she still reminded me of the creepy tin man from The Wizard of Oz, but that wasn't even where it stopped.

As if on cue, both the men that had been sitting beside the corpse stood in tandem, each with a wooden bucket in one hand leaking dark fluid into the seams between the pieces of wood— Fluid that I identified near-instantaneously as blood. From there it felt like I was a spectator, trying to scream but not fast enough to stop them as first the taller man on my right emptied his bucket into the chest cavity of the plastic corpse, splashing it messily onto parts of her exposed skin and giving flushed life to the parts the blood touched— Spots of skin flushed and gained a lifelike peach colour while her lungs started to breathe and her internal organs convulsed with use and activity. Not a moment later, the man on my left turned his face towards me for a second even though I couldn't see it before doing exactly the same thing as his partner; There was no room left in her chest for the blood to take and so it spilled grotesquely over her skin instead, crawling with a mind of its own where physics would never allow it to move in normal circumstances. Her flesh gained the rest of its lifelike flush and the excess liquid draped over her form like a sanguine gown; colour tinted her lips and cheeks and finally, since there was nowhere left to taint with its colour, the blood settled into her eyelashes, her eyebrows and short waves, sinking into the white to create a perfect copy of me.

A copy that sat up, that breathed through reddened lips with her insides in plain view... that had soaked up so much blood that when she opened her eyes, they were red too. She looked at me, accusingly almost, while she touched the uncovered hollow of her chest with bloody fingertips.

_'What's wrong with me? Why am I missing a piece?'_

On either side of her, a pulsating pink lump with a charred black and bleeding line to serve as the base it rested on was produced, each held protectively in a bare, pale hand poking out of a voluminous black robe.

Two matching halves of one missing piece.

_'Can I have those back? It hurts so much...'_

The ache in her voice was familiar, since I heard it every day in my own voice, but the reactions to her request were immediate, and almost violent. On my right the lump of flesh was quickly closed in by both the man's hands and drawn close to his chest, denying my clone access to take it back; The action wasn't protective, it was _vicious_, as if the holder would fight tooth and nail for the little piece he had before giving it up. On my left the denial was more subtle; The bleeding lump seemed to dissolve into his skin even though he extended his arm for her to take back what belonged to her.

One was unwilling, and one was unable, to return what didn't belong in their hands.

The willing one's posture faltered, as if he was truly repentant of what he couldn't help; He pulled my clone to a stand by taking her bloody hand and then held it to his chest, through the robe.

_'You're welcome to it.'_

He undid the robe for her and it fell open to reveal a chest as pale as his hand, already bearing an incision reserved for autopsy subjects burned dark red against the white. Without the dark shadow of the hood to hide it, the sad smile he wore was a familiar one, and I didn't want to keep watching this exchange.

To my horror, but not my surprise, she seemed to have no compunctions about reaching into my _best friend_'s chest to rip out his heart and smile at it still beating in the palm of her hand; Even less surprising was the fact that he was smiling too, even as he fell to the ground...

A plastic corpse, just like she had been.

Cue the screaming; How else do you wake up from a nightmare?

Screaming until my throat was raw and scorched dry, crying as hard as my eyes and lungs would allow me to, I was pulled out of my nightmares by pain— More specifically a slap to the face, although the blood I started to choke on almost immediately was coming from a gushing wound on the side of my tongue and overflowing onto the rough surface my face scraped against as the crushing ache strained my insides and wouldn't let me stop the flow of wrenching sobs being pulled straight from my chest.

Something soft and relatively scentless was firmly pressed to my nose and mouth after only a moment, forcing me to breathe in whatever the cloth was saturated in; It wasn't the chloroform I'd been threatened with, but it was something. Something that slowed my breathing, made my arms and legs heavy enough that I couldn't fight the weight that I hadn't noticed was pressing me to the floor and took away the energy my body and mind were diverting to crying— It silenced me down to a quiet and inconsistent hiccough and sniffle that did nothing to help the pain.

Right offhand, I couldn't tell you what he used to shut me up— Just that it was strong, and most likely medical grade. He'd gotten it from Tsunade, obviously, just like whatever it was had had to lift up my skirt to inject me with. I felt the needle, and I felt the medication penetrate the muscle, but it didn't send me back to sleep or just conk me out, like I'd expected; Instead the weight I felt lifted a fraction, and I could move just enough to assist him in pulling me to a sit in the dark wooden cart. I tried to shift off of the buttock that he'd injected me in when he sat me up straight, but I couldn't summon up enough control over my motor skills, and the throbbing pain that came with the invasion of the muscle continued unabated while he forced me to sit up straight.

_'Nee-chan okay?'_ The sound of Ren's voice was muffled and far away while I tried to look around; It was only now that I realized she wasn't even in the cart with me anymore. The cart wasn't moving, so I could only assume that we'd stopped for a break, or to set up camp so they could eat... But Kakashi was checking something I couldn't see with more concentration than I was garnering from him; It took a minute before he pulled back the curtain at the back of the cart enough for me to see the grey light outside.

"She's fine, she just had a nightmare. She's still sleepy, but we'll be out in a minute. Remember what I told you." I didn't hear what she said back to him; Her voice was getting farther away by the second and I just knew she was going somewhere that was beyond a rest stop... She was going away by _his_ design, to make this messed up game easier.

"W-wh...ere...?" _Where are you sending her? _The control I had over my voice was almost completely negligible; I couldn't even enunciate a single syllable word without my throat seizing up and it coming out a series of stuttered sounds. I must've sounded like a complete zombie, because I felt about as coherent.

"She's taking Bull and going roundabout while I take you to confuse the trail; I can't be keeping an eye on her when I have a trail to cover. Don't take this personally, but I have to remove that skirt." The abrupt subject change wasn't a question and it was very _obviously_ not personal; He wouldn't even look at me as he brought it up.

"Lee... sk...irt..." I didn't want him removing my skirt and taking me anywhere, particularly since I could only presume that he intended to carry me... If we were remaining with the cart there wouldn't be any reason to send Ren away, trail confusion or not...

Which brought me to a point of my own confusion: Why did he need to cover his tracks so badly? If this was Tsunade's way of getting me away from the wedding plans to keep me from interfering and ruining them, she wasn't going to send someone after us... And I couldn't make myself believe that Kakashi had any rhyme or reason to _actually_ kidnap me— Not without the order. Maybe Tsunade was doing this off the books, and she needed to cover her own ass as a result. It made sense... especially since she was not, in fact, the one in charge anymore; She was a figurehead.

"It's either remove it or _ruin_ it— It's too long to trust not to leave your scent everywhere along our trail. Any tree it brushes, any bush it could snag on is a chance I'm not taking of being found. You'll get it back in about 10K." There was no more argument, because he never gave me the chance— In one swift movement the filmy blue material lingering about my feet was in his hand and yanked out from underneath me entirely to be crumpled into a tiny ball of fabric and stashed away out of sight. Later I'd be amazed that he managed it without shredding the skirt, but right then I was struck stupid at the gesture and how hard he was avoiding looking at me. Even as he picked up my nearly dead weight in his arms, he continued to look away; It didn't seem to matter where, just so long as it wasn't at me.

"This won't take long— The area is one not particularly... _hospitable_ to sanctioned nin. They'll have to turn back if they reach the border ahead." His explanation made absolutely no sense to me, not until I took a serious look and realized that not only was he unarmed, he wasn't in uniform any longer. Even the crested headguard bearing evidence of his allegiance had been replaced by an undistinguished scrap of black fabric skewed over his left eye to obscure the most telltale signature of his identity. I almost dreaded the scenery I knew stood beyond the curtain, even before I'd seen it to ascertain that I was right about where we were.

Now that Amegakure was all but a pile of rubble, there was only one place that was a complete dead zone to sanctioned nin, whether on the wild side of the fence or the mellow. Law enforcement from either side, Konoha's army versus Iwa's... they were both sacrosanct there, and it obeyed its own law, protecting the refugee criminals it attracted with all the vengeance of a woman scorned.

_Hanagakure_. We were less than ten kilometres from the border into Flower country, where even Naruto would be forcefully barred from removing us if we were claiming sanctuary of any sort, despite his status as a jinchuuriki and the devastation he could wreak if he was so inclined. The women here made it their personal goals to protect their people, justly crucified or not, and they weren't afraid of even the bijuu. I knew, I'd seen it before... When the two-tails was released after the defunct Akatsuki massacre, it went back home— Hanagakure.

The monstrous _nekomata_ demon was now sealed within another jinchuuriki— The only one created since the release of the first seven tailed beasts, a little girl named Reika. None of the sanctioned hidden villages knew about the sealing of the Niibi inside of another human, and it was one more bit of knowledge I kept silent inside my head.

More importantly than anything; Hana was where Deidara had settled after his second supposed death— Somehow I couldn't help but feel that the thick black line dividing my life into its honest and dishonest proportions was about to blur into obscurity. Deidara hated Kakashi for ripping off his arm; Kakashi was a victim to the belief that there were no living Akatsuki members left and was also a devout, law-abiding shinobi. Heads were going to roll for certain, but whose would join mine would be a matter of who found who first— If I was a luckier woman, I might hope that a population rivalling even the most bustling of civilian cities would separate them for however long was necessary, but I didn't have that luxury.

If things 'weren't personal' _now_, Kakashi was going to outright _hate_ me in the very near future.

"Don't fidget." Once we were beyond the cart bed, I didn't need a second warning; The cart was flopped haphazardly into a ravine, wheels spinning lazily while it hung suspended a good hundred or so feet above the river below— Considering the state of the vehicle, I wondered and was consequently afraid to ask how I had possibly slept through such a damaging crash or the resulting drop from the edge above... A silence lurch rolled through my stomach as I took a moment to realize that there had been horses pulling the cart when I'd been pushed in; Now the harnesses were just swinging back and forth, snapped into pieces.

"C...r...ash?"

"When have you _ever_ seen me crash a cart?" I watched in passive curiosity while he ascended up the steep cliff wall to alight on a thick dead tree caught across the gap almost directly above where we'd jumped out of the cart; He'd broken tradition and picked me up bridal style, so I had a pretty good view of whatever he was doing. Right then, it was shifting my weight to throw something heavy and palm-sized into the abandoned cart. I heard the branches supporting the wreck crack ominously, but it was the thick, sluggish cloud of opaque smoke that began erupting from the cart bed that worried me for a moment— It smelled worse than anything I'd ever caught wind of, and if I didn't have a relatively strong stomach Kakashi would've been covered in its lack of contents. It absolutely _reeked_.

"... And now we run." It was evident why he had to warn me; He really _meant_ it. We were off and gone at a pace that left me reeling and wishing I could move enough to bury my face and not see how fast we were going... Or how fast the smoke was following us. Not really _following_ us, obviously, but just spreading in general; Up and down the cliff walls, out in all directions like a thick, grey-green fog. Either it was toxic, to incapacitate trackers' animals, it was corrosive, to destroy the caravan, or it was just plain noxious, to confuse tracker nins and their pets... If I was the one orchestrating this little game, it would be a poison gas canister that he'd thrown into the cart, but I could only doubt that— He would probably exhaust any option he had before hurting one of his colleagues or their pets.

An admirable quality to be sure, I just don't have that kind of honourable spirit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one for needless slaughter, but I generally don't quit until I know the job is done and I'm in no danger of retaliation. A weak enough poison wouldn't even kill a small dog like Pakkun, for example, but it would make it sick enough to discontinue a search.

Whatever he used to paralyse me, it had a short life; I could move my toes soon after we started running. Next came my fingers, my wrists and ankles, my neck and jaw... By the time we got to the border and in sight of the first of many Hanagakure black ops outposts, Kakashi was able to put me on the ground and give me back my skirt; I could walk with assistance and due to the fact that, being _male_, it was better for Kakashi to remain as inconspicuous as possible... It was better if he didn't carry me or run two to three times the normal documented civilian run speed. Even the seedy underbelly of the shinobi world had rules to follow and red flags to avoid.

Until we were actually _in_ the village and the Hanakage had been clued in that we were there for... however long this lasted, It would be a good idea to obey the rules; Mostly the ones prohibiting visiting men from carrying weapons or wearing body armour of any sort. The guards at the village entrance were all trained to be strict and thorough... I could get away with vouching for him if I needed to though, even if I'd just do it so that they didn't get the pleasure of searching him.

Especially since, just by sight alone, I knew that the two manning the gate would _really_ enjoy searching him; There was a reason they had never allowed themselves to be promoted to a more exciting or higher-paying position in the village. They enjoyed their jobs, and they enjoyed the... _perks_ that often came with their jobs.

I did _not_ want them feeling him up while I was standing right there, I'd probably end up snapping one of their pretty little necks. Jealousy is ugly, when you don't live up to the bleach-blonde barbie dolls you realize could very well be your competition... Even when you know you're not really a contestant.

"Purpose—"

"— And duration of stay?" I frowned, realizing for the first time how their co-ordinated behaviours worked so well on their prey; I'd always known their game, but I'd never honestly had anything against the fake vapidity and coquettish flirting... Then again, I was usually not standing beside the man they were visually devouring, either.

"—I'm taking some time off of the road. I don't know how long I'll be." Three sets of eyes snapped to me in shock. Mayu had a low, whispery voice with a heavy Iwa accent and one of them had never heard it before; The other two immediately recognized it and eased their eyes purposefully away from Kakashi with as much subtlety as they could.

"...There have been incidents lately, Shiranui-san. Mark, please." Unhesitatingly I undid the top few buttons of my white shirt and pulled it down to bare my left shoulder and allow one of the girls to pass a glowing blue hand over the upper part of my arm. Upon finding what they needed she backed away a respectful distance and I pulled my shirt back up, trying to look more bored and less annoyed than I was.

"...Enjoy the village." They both immediately snapped to a state of ignoring me as much as possible while I dragged Kakashi as fast as I could move through the gate; Despite the burning in my legs and the general difficulty of moving, I didn't stop until I'd pulled him onto the empty lift to the upper echelons of the village.

"...What the hell was that?" I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair to settle it— It had stuck into stiff peaks over the tender bit at the top of my scalp where blood was dried into it from the previous night.

"I saved you from being strip-searched by a couple of overzealous gatekeepers, that's what."

"That's not what I meant. What's with the accent?"

"You don't pay very much attention when you read, do you? Shiranui Mayu was born and raised in Earth Country, and Jiraiya uses her accent to great literary effect on several occasions."

"You take your character seriously."

"A job done halfway isn't worth doing." I let go of him to cross my arms over my chest; Not that it mattered, since we weren't sharing even the basest of eye contact and I could stand on my own... Why touch when we didn't need to and it hurt to do so? Not physically, but emotionally.

"Send a message to Bull. Bring Ren to the top level of the village, walk through the gates like they live here. Nobody will give a second glance to a dog and a five year old girl."

"...You're supposed to be the kidnap-_ee_, Sakura."

"Well if I were the kidnapp_er_, than you'd be bound, gagged and drugged beyond consciousness so that's pretty obvious—"

"Settle down. ...And stop giving orders, you don't know where we're going anyway."

"So where _are_ we going then?"

"A cute little inn that somebody absolutely _insisted_ that I bring you to." For a moment, my stomach plummeted beyond what the lift caused through its normal motion and I froze completely. He'd been _expected_ here, and by someone who knew I'd be with him.

"... Why did you do this?"

"Because."

"That's not an answer."

"It's all I can give you right now." His response didn't surprise me, though that didn't mean I was happy about it; When the lift stopped I walked off of it without a second look at him or the crowds that surrounded us as I walked onto the suspended platform housing the kunoichi population on its surface— This was where the necessary military did all its living, so that it was separate from the general population. The inn Kakashi mentioned was up here, in close proximity to the Hanakage's villa, and was usually where... visitors that she wanted to keep a _personal_ eye on would stay, if she couldn't isolate them a room in her own house.

In short, that meant Kakashi wouldn't be my only babysitter for the duration of this trip, and the leader of this entire village was in on my... 'kidnapping'.

"Slow down." As much as I wanted to lose him, that wasn't happening anytime soon; The crowd of girls in various states of formal dress and undress moving in all directions hampered any options I had for getting away from him, and the sidelong glances I was getting for looking like I'd gotten dressed in the dark weren't helping. Some women were even stopping in their tracks to gawk at my horribly mismatched outfit and obvious lack of footwear.

"Sakura, I told you to settle down." Strong arms grabbed me from behind far faster than was rightfully fair, lifting me off of my feet and stopping me from going anywhere while my arms were pinned fairly painfully to my sides by a frame larger than mine; He could damn near fit his arms around me twice, for crying out loud...

"Put me down."

"Are you going to behave and stop being so openly hostile?" The breath and gentle hum of his voice on the back of my neck was maddening; I wanted to break out and claw the skin off of my spine, just to get that sensation off of me. It wasn't fair.

"You haven't even _seen_ hostile yet. Now let go of me, dammit." He did, and I surrendered to the immediate need I had to separate myself from him; My nails actually came back bloody when I looked at them after the pain started blossoming in sharp fresh slices across my skin. I couldn't even let him touch me to stop me; I wheeled as far from his grasp as I could manage while passerby watched us in their field of vision with passive curiosity.

"Don't. Touch. Me." There was a black anger in my voice when I faced him to lay down my only rule; Whether he heard it or not though, it would shortly turn out that I wasn't clear enough for him when I made the only real demand I ever voiced.

Honestly, it barely looked like he heard me; The sight of my bloody fingernails seemed to take up his attention rather efficiently, with the added perk of a completely horrified expression to cover the quarter of his face that was actually visible. I didn't wait for it to fade before stomping off in the direction of the inn; I wanted to put on some clean clothes and wash whatever of him my nails didn't get off my skin.

Kakashi was right— It _was_ a cute little inn. Single-level, clay-tile roof reminiscent of centuries old architecture, complete with a steep overhang and shoji panels inviting guests into a warm, traditional interior. The Hanakage's villa was decorated in a similar style, although it was outwardly obvious that she enjoyed her contemporary architecture too; Here, it was far less conspicuous that there was anything built this century.

I enjoyed places like this, a fact that seemed at the moment to be taken advantage of; Even if Kakashi was unaware of my preference for such a high level of historical accuracy, there was someone who wasn't, and she was in on this entire thing. This was a set-up no matter how you looked at it.

If I had been wearing shoes, it would have been a pleasure to remove them in the entrance room of the elegant establishment; As it was though, I was a mess. Whatever adrenaline had been fuelling me was wearing off rapidly and I could feel a searing headache taking over my ability to think properly, while my stomach constricted painfully in warning— It felt like I hadn't eaten in days. I was _aware_ when my knees hit the wooden floorboards, but I didn't _feel_ it... It was like there was a thick glass wall between my mental consciousness and my physical presence; Internal pain versus external.

Trust Kakashi to be trailing so closely behind me that my hands never had a chance to break my fall, nor did the hostess have time to rush to us when she heard me hit the floor before I was pulled up again, my feet dangling haphazardly while I remained marginally disoriented.

"I told you you should settle down." The sentiment was growled low enough that the concerned hostess never heard him, but I couldn't answer if I wanted to; Somehow, enhanced vision wasn't such a good thing when the ceiling wouldn't stop spinning.

I heard the abbreviated conversation that carried on between Kakashi and the inn hostess, but most of it didn't register any meaning with me beyond the fact that we didn't have to wait for our room; He'd apparently had this planned some time in advance, but the significance that piece of knowledge might have had was dulled by the visual distortion I was suffering and the aching cramp that was gnawing away my insides. Worse than anything though, it brought memories back to me. And not just memories...

_Memories._ The kind I couldn't actually remember properly, that were always deficient in one way or another, mostly in the lack of coherent perception... But these were _real._ Bright, vivid and so _real_, I was bleeding to death, choking on blood while I wasn't— I was being placed with the utmost delicacy on a bed that I'd never seen before.

It was there, and then it was gone... but for a moment, it had been so frighteningly real that it _replaced_ reality.

"... Bull's on his way with the kid. The hostess is sending some soup for you to eat, and I wouldn't suggest getting picky— You haven't had more than broth in three days, you'll collapse again if you don't eat something substantial."

"...Yeah." The food was a lesser concern for the moment, as I rolled onto my side and curled up with my knees to my chest to help with the discomfort; The memory that came back was so much different, but had nothing sparked it besides the pain? I had been staring at... mud, and dirty machinery while my face was pressed to the ground... Painted toenails, black sandals and familiar white stirrup pants... but the scene made no sense, at least not that I could remember... I did get the acute sensation that I couldn't live through the damage that had been done to me, and momentarily I held onto myself while the thought of getting my guts ripped out fit the destructive scenario with a morbid perfection.

"... Don't think I'm doing any of this to hurt you."

"...Why the force? Threats?" I'd closed my eyes, to better recapture the feeling of memories it couldn't be healthy to relive, but I heard the impatient, maybe even repentant sigh as the mattress dipped beside me under his weight, forcing me to drag the blankets with me as my body slid into the valley.

"That way if I overlooked something, if anybody saw us leave... They'd testify that you were being forced and under extreme duress. If anyone caught up to us, you wouldn't be at fault. I had to make it look real, at least up until the border here."

"...Shoulda just used the chloroform."

"Well I was hoping to clue you in sometime after we'd left, so I didn't want you to pass out... I wasn't expecting an encore of what happened after your jounin exam." I glared through the tiny bit I was able to open the eye turned up towards him, but once again, he wasn't really looking at me; Except for where I'd slid on the bed and my arm touched his, there wasn't any real indication we were even in the same room... I could have been talking to him on a telephone and nothing would've been any different.

"...You won't tell me _why_ you did this though." It wasn't a question and neither of us treated it as such... But that didn't stop his expression from turning brooding and sullen, even if only for a second.

"Not yet. Answer me a question though... What did you show the gatekeepers your shoulder for?" I bristled, debating withholding that bit of information until he'd surrender the answer I wanted... But that wouldn't get me anywhere. For the moment, he had the indisputable control over this situation and nonetheless, he could just go to the girls and ask them himself.

"Residents and people that visit with any noticeable frequency get tagged for easy identification. It saves a lot of hassle and harassment at the gates."

"...There's nothing there though." As if to check what he was already assured of, he pushed back the collar of my shirt where I had neglected to fasten it back up... I could tell by the scrutinizing expression that he didn't believe a small brown birthmark could serve as any sort of reliable identification.

"It works under the same principles as ultraviolet ink tattoos— It can't be seen unless you know what you're looking for and how to find it." With a nearly inappropriate amount of effort, I managed to channel enough chakra into my fingers to illuminate the mark that identified me as a member of society, even if only on a part-time basis; Five of the village's official flower, all tattooed in a ring around the upper part of my arm... The gatekeepers only ever looked for the three on the outside of the arm, but the entire tattoo was designed for symmetry as well as practicality.

"...What's with the barcode?" I groaned, but I couldn't help it; Trust him to bring up the one tattoo I never consciously had a choice for, the one I tried as hard as I could to _not_ remember.

"... Mist treats their prisoners like possessions, assets... They keep track of us, so that if we ever escape they can still identify us. If I could've removed it without removing the arm, I would have."

"That's a little drastic."

"Well, I _was_ a hostage... I imagine I was a higher priority to keep a hold of than, say, your average civilian murderer slash rapist." That was the first thing that got any real reaction out of him; He actually _looked_ at me.

"I never heard about that." I sniffed, a little perplexed by how little he knew about the workings of village politics.

"Well, obviously you wouldn't. Village policy refuses negotiation in hostage situations, especially when a significant ransom is demanded; The threats never leave the Hokage's office, specifically to avoid heroics on the part of anyone significantly involved with the hostage... In my case, that would've meant mostly Naruto, but I imagine that Tsunade knew you couldn't be trusted to stay put either." He looked taken aback at my observational narrative, but he didn't respond with anything I didn't already know.

"She never made any indication that she even knew you were ever in Mist when I brought her that scroll you returned with."

"You've never lied when you knew something you weren't supposed to? What would you have said to her if she said 'Oh yeah, I knew she was in prison being tortured every day, I just wasn't allowed to pony up the required ransom to get her back.'? Honesty isn't exactly an important part of any political figure's agenda."

"I guess I'm not surprised by your lack of faith in the village." I laughed. As if my stint in prison was any reason to be mad.

"...I'd be more offput if they actually sent someone after me or paid the price; One life isn't worth the suffering of others, and never should be."

"You're not the person to judge how much your own life is worth. Naruto would've ripped the place apart to find you, you know that."

"You think I wanted that? I'd rather rot in a cell knowing that the people I care about are safe than know they're not only risking _their lives_, but _open war_ to bust me out!" This wasn't even an argument I should have been having with him; There was some sort of shift in the balance while the subject remained, particularly when he was careful not to mention _his_ reaction beside what Naruto would have done.

"A team's nothing if it doesn't stick together."

"...That's a pretty shitty sentiment, considering that our team has the lowest retention rate in damn near fifty years of village history— Three deserters and two temps makes for a pretty bad example of team unity."

"That doesn't mean we still wouldn't have came for you against village policy. You're one of us." Another sentiment to laugh at while he continued.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" For the first time since I'd been put down, I pushed myself onto my hands and attempted to sit up; The pain had dulled enough that it wasn't crippling, and it allowed me to sit almost eye-to-eye with him.

"...There's only one reason not to leave marks during torture, and that's because the merchandise needs to be returned. I thought you would have known that." He looked... surprised, but the reality that I'd technically already told him hit hard, and stabbed at my chest when his face crumpled in... hurt, disappointment... maybe even resentment.

"Stop worrying about it, it's done and over with now. My time in the slam is less to worry about than anything that came after." And I mean _anything_. Even Jiraiya was a worse influence on my behaviour than beating up other criminals to secure a niche in prison could ever be.

"Itachi." I rolled my eyes. Far be it for me to think that he was a _good_ behavioural influence.

"Among others."

"He was the worst."

"If you don't like it, I'm not _making_ you share my company; That's your choice."

"You're misunderstanding me—"

"What's to misunderstand? Either you like the way I am or you don't, there is no middle ground. Who might have influenced me is irrelevant." For some reason, where his aversion to the knowledge that I had been well-acquainted with Itachi hadn't really bothered me that much before, I was truly at odds with it now. Maybe I was just taking it too personally... or maybe I was sure that it was going to reflect his opinion of _me_ once it came to light that I was more like Itachi than he ever counted on.

I couldn't help how fast my mood went south; The possibilities were endless for how I could be censured, but I really only cared about the opinions of a small handful of people... The most important of which was doomed to find out firsthand just how much I had to hide. It wasn't right, to place so much importance on his opinion... but that didn't seem to matter.

"I have no problem with the way you are... minus the irrational hostility... but that doesn't mean I have to be happy that you took the side of someone we both know was a criminal."

"So what does kidnapping a criminal accomplice make _you_? Assuming that I'm not _actually_ on the same level as him, which you don't truly have any idea." I'd turned my back on him long before we'd got this far into the conversation; I didn't want him to see what I knew, and the subject itself was depressing to begin with... I looked enough like a wreck, if I was going to write my feelings on my face than I didn't want him reading that particular novella.

"I'm sure you're justified for whatever you've done. I won't pretend to understand if I don't... But I won't think any less of you, either." The tone of voice he used was ominous... I'd say it sounded omniscient, actually, like he knew exactly what I'd been up to and accomplished in my short life... I still didn't turn around. He had too much going for him; If he really wanted me to believe him, he could make me do it... If he wanted to force trust out of me, he already had more than was healthy for me.

"Nice of you to say, but I doubt it." A lingering spell of lethargy gained a bit of strength, sending me headfirst into the pillows, my arms wrapped around one while I buried my face so I didn't have to look at my roommate. The presence of his hand ghosted over my back before coming to rest on the exposed skin above the band of my skirt, causing me to stiffen in unnatural defence against the warmth— He'd taken off his gloves, so that the skin of his entire hand was exposed, rather than just part, and I didn't want to admit that I didn't _want_ him to quit touching me, I didn't _want_ him to stop being friendly with me... I didn't want him to stop _hurting_ me, if that was what it meant.

Sasuke was right— I am a masochist.

"Tell me and we'll see." Smoothly, in one fluid motion he flipped me over on my back and surprised, I curled up defensively, pulling the pillow that still remained in my arms down against my chest and away from my face— I shouldn't have. His face was way to close to not pull me from a semi-stupor in surprise and send my pulse accelerating off the charts.

"You won't even tell me why you spirited me away from the village and you expect me to spill my entire sordid history to you? Not asking much, are you?" Defensive sarcasm masked the shaking my voice was doing, falling in line to mimic the rest of my body. My knuckles were undoubtedly turning white while I tried to hide it. His face fell, but he didn't budge; One hand still resting on the bed against my waist, leaning over me in a way which was entirely unfair, and it was easy to imagine that this was some twisted nightmare and I'd never woken up.

"I didn't say that I _wouldn't_ tell you, I just can't yet."

"Then forget it. You know where we are, go do some investigating."

"You don't think I'd rather hear it from you first?" As much as there was a point to that line of thinking, I vehemently refused, crossing my arms over my chest to pointedly display that he was not going to hear it from me; Not here, not now. Not _ever_, if I could help it.

"I'd rather chew on broken glass." It wasn't a hostile statement, despite the way I tried to make it sound, and he knew it. I was doing a poor job of hiding, and the faint knock at the door seemed like a saviour; Kakashi extracted his hand from under the hem of my shirt and sat up while the door slid open and I resumed the breath I'd lost, sitting up in a hurry when I realized that the situation looked worse than it was.

The faint flush on the girl's face told me I was too late; Her wish that we enjoy our meals was rushed and mumbled, her bow abbreviated after she pushed the heavy tray across the tatami at us. She even left with far less grace than she normally should, working at a place like this, and the door closed so fast it bordered on a slam.

I didn't even get a chance to get up off the bed; Whether it was because I was moving unnaturally slow or because irritation at being interrupted made him faster, I have no clue but he had gotten up and retrieved the tray before I'd even fully registered that he left. The frustration didn't abate with his physical absence, so to speak, and I found it was hard to concentrate on eating. Our conversation didn't continue either, probably because the mood he'd pressed before was absent; He thought the likelihood that he could crack me was diminished, so he'd wait to try again... At least until there was another opportunity he could take advantage of to make me as uncomfortable as humanly possible.

There's something wrong with you when one man has a better chance of making you spill your guts than any professional interrogation unit you've ever encountered, I'm sure of it.

Things went as expected from then on; He acted like nothing had happened, my refusal or otherwise... He ordered an extra futon brought to the room for when Ren arrived, and rearranged the partition so that she could sleep in her own little niche— This was, however, more than indicative of his expectation that I'd be willing, or unable to refuse, to sleep together tonight and however many other nights we were staying here.

It was an expectation that awakened my nerves afresh; Would sleeping next to him even be possible? There wasn't enough space to sleep without making contact... Well, maybe for someone who didn't have chronic nightmares there might be, but I twisted and tossed so much that I bet even a king-sized bed was really too small for whoever I was sleeping with not to get bruises. Then there was the small issue that, no matter how you looked at it Kakashi was a little... _touchy-feely_ while he slept. Put together, these problems did not equate to a good night's sleep.

"They'll be here in about fifteen or so minutes, the girl picked up on some incomers they didn't recognize and Bull took a longer route. Feeling better?"

"Depends if you have my meds stashed away somewhere or not. They might go a long way towards helping." Not taking them in... I believe Kakashi said _three_ days...? It was certain to hurt me— There were antibiotics in that regime, I was certain, but it was the painkillers I wanted.

Not so strangely, Kakashi pulled a small bag and two scrolls out of the pack— My medication and all mine and Ren's clothing... No clue what the third scroll was, but I don't imagine it had much to do with me since he put it back almost as soon as he'd taken it out. Maybe it was his clothing, or weapons, or even his ninken summoning scroll, but I didn't know for sure.

More interesting was the fact that one, and _only_ one of the bottles were almost completely depleted... One of the few bottles it was necessary that I ingest the entire contents.

"What happened to the rest of my prescription?" I shook the bottle within his line of sight, though I didn't turn away from my bag to look at him.

"...Crushed them up and made you drink them. Three a day, for three days plus one a couple hours before you woke up, you should be missing ten exactly." Mildly surprised, I examined the bottle again to find that he was probably right; Tsunade wasn't particularly detailed about labelling the prescriptions she gave you by hand, beyond general instructions and warnings, so I didn't know exactly how many pills had started out in the bottle... But they didn't have any addictive qualities or street value, and I did feel better than I had before he loaded me in the cart like human cargo... I couldn't fathom that he'd lie to me, he just didn't have any reason to.

"How did you feed me without waking me up?"

"Oh you were _awake_... You just weren't all that aware and alert, that's all."

"...That doesn't answer my question."

"Sure it does. The kid couldn't even tell that anything was wrong, you drank your soup just fine. You just get kind of... zombie-ish, when you're like that. Single-syllable answers, tripping over your own feet, the entire horror movie bit." I groaned incoherently and my head slipped into my hands, displacing the half-empty prescription into my lap.

"Don't get so depressed— Things could have been a hell of a lot worse."

"Yeah, I know. ...You know, I never did end up thanking you for the flowers..." It was funny, how quickly a mood could change; He'd only ever been nice... mostly, anyway... And knowing that made me even more depressed. I didn't like feeling like I was being set up to fail; It was like I was twelve again and I'd just been assigned to Sasuke's team, where the inherent knowledge of the inevitable outcome clouded everything that made the moment worth it.

This was so uncannily close, it seemed like a song that was supposed to have finished but instead its stuck on repeat.

"So... thanks. It was thoughtful of you." I didn't know if he was paying attention; He wasn't saying anything, anyway... And I couldn't stand to stay there.

Every room in the inn proper had an exit to the garden courtyard; It wasn't much of an escape, but I couldn't go far if I wanted to... Ren was due back any minute, and I wouldn't just disappear and leave her with Kakashi. There wasn't anything wrong with a bit of solitude after a day like today... In a beautiful, well-tended garden with a fountain (since this high up it was a little awkward to try to put in a koi pond) and a stone path that extended all the way through to the edge of the platform. The guardrail was well disguised by foliage, but it was also stone like the path and made for a well-placed bench.

It wasn't hot here, like it was in Konoha at this time of year... Here it always maintained double-digit humidity, but even in its hottest weather it never breached forty degrees Celsius... Right now it was _maybe_ twenty, but I doubted it— The temperature inside the inn was a great deal warmer than it was outside, but that might also have been a factor of the humidity. I wouldn't have doubted you if you told me the humidity bordered on three digits that night, since a light mist coated the garden and all that I could see of the levels below me when I leaned over the railing to watch the chaos... Of which there wasn't much, I can assure. If you wanted to be specific, dawn hadn't broken yet and you could still count it to be near the middle of the night— It might not seem like it, since from here you can never see the stars through the canopy and the top level at least never sleeps, but it was already dark when nightmares awoke me in the back of that old wagon.

It was the odd, completely out-of-place sound of a cricket chirping that brought me back to the level I was on from the one below, where I'd been watching a child climb over the railing and attempt to sneak down one of the platform supports— It was a white cricket, milky in colour and about as anatomically correct as a schoolchild's drawing of one... If I picked it up in my hand, it would be soft and porous and would probably dissolve if I took it and dropped it in the fountain in the middle of the garden.

Deidara already knew that I was here. Cracking a halfhearted smile, I scratched the representation of the creature's wings and it chirped again, signifying what I already knew; It wasn't a bomb, it was a _bug_.

"_I'll come see you, not the other way around._" The cricket seemed to cock its head to the side as I whispered to it, but it bounded off after a moment without another sound, so I could only assume he'd heard and understood me. Blowing him off because I knew I'd get caught seemed like a pretty shitty thing to do, but I still hadn't decided how to deal with the inevitable confrontation I was going to be stuck in the middle of, I would most certainly be followed if I tried to leave and I couldn't leave anyway because I hadn't actually _seen_ Ren in three days and the last time I saw her she was mediating between hacking up a lung and sneezing her head off.

I could have gone back into the room when Deidara's bug vanished; He'd only managed to unsettle and displace me further anyway, but I still thought I'd rather stay outside and freeze my ass off in clothes that were suited for neither the damp nor the cold... The physical need for clarity was stronger than the desire to be comfortable... or uncomfortable, depending on how you interpret the situation.

I could look at any of the myriad flowers and plants in this garden and tell you how to extract or create a deadly poison from it; I could jump off of this platform, the top level of the village and I had no doubt that I'd survive the impact at the bottom of the gully, river or wherever else I might land... I couldn't make Kakashi's presence a comfortable one though, despite the capabilities I claimed in everything else.

Was there a trick to it? Some secret that escaped me when it came to quelling physical and emotional attraction?

I'd never had this problem before... At least not to this extent. It seemed to get worse as time went on rather than better, since I could swear it hadn't been this bad when I initially returned to the village. Even Itachi had never provoked such a strong impulse to forget myself and just tell him whatever he wanted to hear, whether it was true or not... And Itachi might have been the only one to ever make me forget I was crushing on my teacher at any given time.

It never went anywhere, obviously... Maybe it was the nightmare that even made me think of it in that sense, but at one point I had been attracted to Itachi... It was just one-sided, that's all. Otherwise, I wouldn't be alone sitting on a stone wall suspended above several hundreds of feet of nothing, afraid of what was going to happen when I went back to my room.

...What would have happened? Would he still be alive, or would he still rather have died than kill Sasuke?If I could have given him more of a reason to live, would that have been enough of an excuse for him to destroy his brother?

Probably not, I decided. Even rotten blood is thicker than water, and the only way I could ever earn Sasuke's place in his priority list was if I actually _was_ his sister. Close but no cigar, as they say...

"Ready to come down?" He sounded a little bored and more than frustrated... He actually sounded like he was right on that borderline between giving up and leaving me there or just snapping and dragging me inside by the hair.

I didn't have any clue which side of that line I'd rather have him end up on.

"Go back inside, Kakashi." My mouth moved faster than I was actually ready to decide, but maybe it was better that I didn't.

Without even seeing him, I could almost tell you every move he made... From approaching the wall to deliberately caging me in with a palm pressed to the stone on either side of my hips and his frame leaning in not more than an inch off of my own slouched back. I tried not to swallow when I crept down into a smaller ball to avoid the breath registering on the back of my neck, but that was a wasted effort... There wasn't any escaping in a quiet garden where all the floral scents couldn't ever hope to overpower the scents of sandalwood, of trace amounts of steel and blood. Quitting breathing was a defence, just like clawing into the stone slab to reintroduce pain into my system.

"I'm not leaving unless you're coming with me." He tickled the back of my ear where the shortest hairs continually waved back and forth with his breathing, and I cringed involuntarily.

My voice came out as little more than a whisper, and I couldn't understand why it wouldn't sound stronger.

"Just go away."

A selective silence progressed for a moment, but it didn't last— A heavy sigh ruffled the hair on the back of my neck and the stone slab under me shifted ominously when he moved his weight away... The forbidding sense that kept me hunched over nearly to my knees didn't leave though, and experience should have told me that was a protective instinct.

"I'm not negotiating with you. Come inside."

"...You aren't my teacher, you're not my superior, you're not in any position of authority over me. Here, you're my _kidnapper_, remember? Just knock me out so I don't have to be conscious for any of this." I rested my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands, trying beyond belief to just forget that he was there. He was like... a beacon, of some sort... nagging at the back of my mind and forcing me to acknowledge that he wouldn't leave.

"That isn't what you want."

"You don't give a damn what I want, you're just going to do whatever anyway!" I whirled around angrily on the rock to face him, for all the good it did me; His stance was lazily slouched, hands in his pockets... He wasn't even looking in my general direction.

Ah, a wonderful example of the lack of respect being born with a double X chromosome gets you. Not that I wasn't used to it, but this was worse than... ever.

"That isn't true and you know it. You're going to get sick if you stay out here." A cool breeze wafted against my back from the empty space behind me and I noticed that he still couldn't be bothered to look at me when he was speaking, even when he knew I was facing him. A spur of the moment, almost impulsive thought occurred to me and I slid backward across the banquette towards the outward edge, wondering if he'd notice even a mere second before I could push myself off of the edge.

No, that was stupid. I wasn't selfish enough to shove myself off of a ledge to see if he was paying attention, I could think of better ways to start a drama than that. Now was the time to feint, to assume a defeated position and sucker punch him in the jaw when he came to ascertain that I was or wasn't still alive. Uh, figuratively speaking anyway. I tend to forget that everything isn't a matter of life and death.

Battle is a life and death situation. Life isn't so easy.

"... I'm going to go take a bath. Don't wait for me. Don't follow me." If he wanted to be evasive and manipulative, I could be silent and distant. However he wanted it, he could have it.

He didn't bother responding, and I hopped down off of the short ledge without ceremony to stride right past him, ignoring the doors to the room in favour of the ones to the inn proper. Light yukata were provided for patrons right in the bath area, so there wasn't any need to interact with Kakashi beyond this point, nor risk it by spending more time in the room fetching my clothes. If I could, I would avoid him as much as possible for the rest of the time we were here... He had far more power over me than vice-versa, and the less he had a chance to use it the better.

He had something in mind for me, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what it was... at least not through experience.

The bath was empty, not that I expected much different at this time of night. Red and blue yukata were stacked up neatly beside immaculately folded white towels in a small, cozy room adjacent to the tiled bathing areas; I was surprised, but there was actually an area designated for men and women, each separated by a tiled partition that spanned up until about two or three feet from the ceiling. The partition ended just shy of the top of my head; It wouldn't take much more than standing on my tiptoes to see over to the other side, which meant it would take even less for Kakashi, and _that_ made me uncomfortable. I wouldn't even hear him come in, nor did I have enough chakra to send it out and set up a net to sense him approaching like I normally would. It was... awkward, being so vulnerable.

I keep a strict eye on the drape that separated the bathing area from the towel room while I washed, and once again I was more than glad for the faster than human eyesight. I could at least count on not missing him, as long as I was watching.

I think I stopped watching, though. The bath I sunk into after I was done washing was like the figurative heaven I didn't believe existed; Chin-deep in deliciously hot water, the scratches on the back of my neck and any other number of miscellaneous tiny lacerations stung in the lightly salted water... but it was a good kind of hurt. It was the kind that persisted while your muscles melted away into the heat, but you got used to it and eventually just didn't feel it.

I thought about everything and nothing before the bathwater cooled to an intolerable level, but mostly I thought about the reason I was here... It was nearly impossible to keep him off of my mind. It wasn't a very productive ... however long it was, but at least I'd wasted enough time that I could hope Kakashi was asleep before I'd gotten back. Ren had undoubtedly returned, probably even before he came to drag me in from the garden, but she'd be asleep by now too. I was tired, but I didn't want to sleep; Sleeping brought memories, and nightmares that were worse than they'd ever been before... I had no reason to want to sleep, it was as much of a hazard as being awake.

Despite that, I eventually got out of the bath, got dried off and dressed in one of the red yukata waiting for a wearer... Ren was in bed when I got back, unsurprisingly, and just as much so, Kakashi wasn't. Well, he wasn't asleep, anyway. He sat back against the headboard with the utmost of serenity, reading a page of Icha Icha Tactics without actually seeing the book.

He forgot, obviously, that I can see what most can't— That even before I was so gifted, his mannerisms didn't completely escape me. I knew something was bothering him... but it wasn't any of my business. He'd made it clear who was supposed to be in control this time, that there was no balance here. Besides, asking would give him another chance to get a leg up, try a tactic that he hadn't used yet. Silence was golden, in a situation where anything you could say would be incriminating or just plain dangerous.

Quickly, almost carelessly, I brushed the scroll and bag that laid on the bedspread off onto the floor. He didn't blink, didn't even acknowledge that he knew I was there beyond the inattentive and unnecessary turn of a page he hadn't even read. He didn't take anymore outward notice when I delicately flicked back the moderately thick top blanket and climbed underneath. Satisfied that he was actually trying to ignore me without completely losing focus, I turned my back on him and flopped down on my pillow, arms curled underneath and around it to help ease the insecurity slowly creeping over me.

"Good night." His voice sounded odd, preceding the sudden absence of light by less than a full second, and I couldn't fight that lingering unease. My chest constricted when he slid down to the pillows, the fact that he wasn't quite touching me completely moot; He was too close to me, and he was doing it purposely. He knew what he did to me, but that didn't stop him from making a game of it.

It reminded me of something... but I couldn't tell you what. The unease continued to build, and I was forced to leave it at that, whispering my only response to his polite sentiment into my pillow so softly he'd never hear it.

"_There's no such thing."_

* * *

"We have a situation."

Everyone called to this meeting was personally involved, except for me. I was here to be a witness, that was all. Other than me, the hokage's office was filled with an abnormal number of ANBU officers, all with their masks on and standing stock still, waiting for their instructions... I recognized a few, but I wasn't truly surprised they were there. For them, the situation was personal.

"Two shinobi have disappeared from the village. There is small evidence of a struggle, but discrepancies in the hospital inventory indicate an absence of several drugs commonly used to incapacitate and a cloth saturated in chloroform lying at the scene of the altercation."

I shivered, remembering the bedroom as I'd found it when I went to the house to go see her; The house had that cold feeling of abandonment, and the bedrooms... The small bedroom was a little rumpled, like Sakura had laid down to sleep and changed her mind, and the guest room was untouched, pristine. The master was tossed, the closet missing a section of clothing that had just been pulled off of the hangers with no mind to the ones that fell on the floor. The bed was thoroughly askew, like somebody had been dragged across it, and then there was that handkerchief lying on the floor at the end of the bed, like it had dropped off. I had thought the worst, and went straight to Tsunade, which brought me to this briefing.

"None of you are going to like hearing this, but as the situation stands it would appear that Uchiha Sakura has kidnapped Hatake Kakashi."

Two of the ANBU stifled laughter, followed by more well-hidden giggles from the rest of their squads— Neither Tsunade or I so much as cracked a smile. As much as I hated to believe it, Sakura was far more capable of pulling this off than Kakashi was. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt Kakashi's abilities in the slightest, he's not one of the best for nothing... But Sakura's the one with the motive, selective morality and medical expertise to identify exactly what she needed from the hospital storecloset. She also had the skills to get past the checkpoint, as long as she had some sort of cart or wagon to carry Kakashi in— She shouldn't by any rights have the strength to get him any distance without mechanical help. We were still checking the merchant and visitor logs to see when they'd left the village, but hadn't found much so far.

"They were last seen at her house; The trail will need to be picked up there, but it's unknown how warm it will be... As far as we can tell they've been gone at least forty-eight hours. Find them and do whatever is required to bring them back. … If she has headed into the dead zone, and it is a very real possibility, report back immediately. There's a separate cell ready for that situation, should it occur. This mission is time-sensitive and completely confidential; You're dismissed."

Without another word the two cells of three disappeared in that ANBU-ish way that thoroughly unsettled me; Possibly because my skills had never quite lived up to that level and I couldn't do it myself. Once the room was empty, save for ourselves, Tsunade slumped down defeated at her desk, her head in her hands.

Honestly, this was kind of what she had been in for.

Sakura hadn't ever been one to just take things lying down, at least not since I'd known her and especially not after she'd returned from her little journey of self-discovery. I understand Tsunade's motivations, but announcing Sakura's marriage publicly was a recipe for disaster and on some level, she knew it.

"Shizune."

"Hai, Tsunade-sama?" She didn't raise her head from her hands to address me, but I was used to it when she was beating herself up because she knew she was wrong.

"Jiraiya, Naruto, Sasuke. They've been in Hanagakure before, get them brought here and briefed." I swallowed, a shred of unease falling over me as she said the name of the village with an expression like she'd swallowed poison. I'd never been, for obvious reasons... But I'd heard terrible things about the criminal haven, especially for the last year and a half or so, since Akatsuki ripped itself apart from the inside.

"Sasuke still hasn't returned to the village, I'm afraid. According to the missing shinobi protocols, we would have sent out a search for him sometime tomorrow... And Naruto's not really in any fit emotional state to be sent anywhere."

"I don't have much choice; Who else can I send when there's every chance she'll fight back? There aren't many who would survive, and Naruto and Jiraiya have the advantage of being her friend and mentor, respectively." I bit my tongue to keep from bringing up the fact that Kakashi was her mentor too, in a fashion, as was Tsunade herself; Meaning that there may not be any real significance to the relationship, at least to Sakura.

"...I'll see what I can do, Tsunade-sama." I didn't even say that Naruto might refuse; The thought was hanging in the air, glaringly clear.

"Before you go, I have one more thing." She waved me over to the desk, finally lifting her head to look at me. The sight was shocking and strange, like her jutsu was failing and her age was beginning to show, even just a little bit.

"I need you to keep this safe." She slid a sealed scroll across the desk at me, perplexing me. Her tone and manner were so sombre, it was unlike her.

"What is it?" It wasn't often that I forgot my formalities, but she was really frightening me. There was something so... forbidding about this scene. It wasn't supposed to be happening.

"...It's not important yet. If anything happens to me to compromise my ability to be hokage, that's when I want you to open it. Until then... Just keep it safe. Dismissed."

She was expecting an attempt on her life.

It made sense. She had just sent out a good chunk of our operating ANBU, and she was planning on sending out Naruto and Jiraiya as well. It was almost like... She was inviting it.

I opened my mouth to protest, to inquire... I don't actually know what I would have said, just that she cut me off with that overly confident and smug smile, the one that assured she wasn't going down without a fight.

I didn't feel any better leaving with that scroll clutched in my hands, but somehow this was something she'd decided was hers to face alone.


End file.
